A food safety & quality assurance expert, Damilare Adeyemi, has stated that local phage production can help slash Nigeria’s foodborne disease.
In a statement to The PUNCH, he stated that bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that specifically infect and destroy bacteria, offering a targeted approach to combat bacterial pathogens without harming human cells or beneficial microbes.
He noted Africa’s food safety challenge is significant but manageable, stating the urgent need for practical tools that work where people actually buy and consume food.
He explained, “Phages, particularly a polyvalent type like KFS-EC3, provide a science-based, locally developed solution to make our buka shops, markets, and factories safer without pushing food prices higher.
“With a straightforward regulatory step, a few pilot projects, and local manufacturing, Nigeria could lead Africa’s adoption of this 21st-century, precision hygiene technology. Our meals will taste the same; they will just be safer.”
He said Africa bears the heaviest burden of foodborne disease worldwide, with an estimated 91 million illnesses and 137,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organisation African Region.
According to him, in Nigeria, assessments indicate that foodborne illnesses cost households and the healthcare system billions of dollars, with diarrhoeal diseases standing out as a major cause.
He said, “Nigeria has robust institutions such as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, and various state and local environmental health teams. As of 2024, it also has a renewed National Policy on Food Safety and Quality along with its Implementation Plan (NPFSQIP 2023).
“Recent Food Hygiene Regulations and Guidelines on Food Hygienic Practices formalise HACCP, personal hygiene, and complaint and recall systems, among other measures. However, enforcement remains inconsistent.”
He pointed out that a recent study on Nigeria’s food safety highlighted issues like poor vendor hygiene, uneven standards in informal markets, pesticide residues on produce, and data gaps in surveillance, noting that governance can be fragmented as well, with overlapping mandates that hinder decisive action across the “farm-to-fork” chain.
“In practice, processors use phages as a rinse, spray, or dip, which leaves no flavour or texture changes and no chemical residues, while effectively reducing targeted pathogens on foods that require little or no cooking.
“In my MSc research in South Korea, I isolated and characterised a polyvalent lytic phage from slaughterhouse sewage. Unlike most phages that target just one genus, the developed phage, which I named KFS-EC3, infects Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Shigella sonnei, the main causes of severe diarrhoea.
“The phage demonstrated strong stability in simulated challenging environmental conditions and a high infection rate even at very low doses. Additionally, no genes associated with virulence, antibiotic resistance, lysogeny, or allergenicity were identified. The success of this research resulted in a patent, highlighting its novelty and potential for application.
“Phages target only the specific bacteria, maintaining taste and beneficial microbes. This makes them perfect for fresh produce, ready-to-eat meats, smoked fish, and salads where there is no “kill step”. KFS-EC3’s effectiveness against three major foodborne pathogens means a single phage spray can adequately infect the pathogens,” he stressed.
Highlighting how Nigeria can implement phage-enabled food safety, he stated the need to utilise the new NPFSQIP 2023 framework to develop NAFDAC guidance that considers food-grade lytic phages as processing aids (aligning with USDA/Food Safety and Inspection Service practices when used on carcasses, trimmings, fresh produce, and ready-to-eat foods).
He also advocated the use of phage in wash water to reduce contamination while maintaining freshness and the need to establish GMP-grade phage production lines at federal universities and biotech parks to reduce costs and secure supply and maintain a national phage bank for the main Nigerian serotypes.
“There is also the need to connect the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control/NAFDAC labs with processors to genotype outbreak strains, update phage cocktails regularly, and monitor effectiveness, thereby closing the ‘data gap’ repeatedly identified in some reports.
“Present phages as naturally derived and residue-free, and clarify that similar products are already approved by the USFDA and listed by the USDA as processing aids,” he added.
