The National Food Safety Agency will more strictly control the fishing industry, the institution’s director general Gheorghe Gaberi announced in a news conference. According to him, only 10% of the national lakes were fish is bred received sanitary-veterinary authorizations, IPN reports.
Gheorghe Gaberi said that about 20,000 tonnes of fish from almost all the seas and oceans were imported into Moldova last year. To make sure the imported fish is safe, the watchdog issued a number of orders to ensure control over the fish products. So far they checked each third imported consignment, but from this year all the consignments will be checked.
Gheorghe Gaberi expressed his concern about the sale of live fish in insanitary conditions by the side of national roads. He said such a practice should be ended with the assistance of the police.
In the same news conference, the Agency’s vice director general Ion Toma said the fish imported into Moldova can be contaminated by larvae of the Anisakidae family. This is a common situation as no fishing area, except for fisheries, can be considered free from parasitic larvae. Most often these larvae are found in such species as mackerel, herring and blue marlin. The raw or half-raw fish and the insufficiently processed fish pose the biggest threats to health.
Ion Toma noted that the risk of infection is yet low for Moldovan consumers as the fish is mainly imported frozen and the parasitic larvae die when this is kept at a temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius during 24 hours.
