Slovakia

Codex Contact Point

Slovak Codex Contact Point, Department of Food Safety and Nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developement of the Slovak Republic, Dobrovičova 12, 812 66 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Telephone:
+421 2 59266 564

Fax:
+421 2 59266 704

Email:
[email protected]

Website:
http://www.land.gov.sk

Competent authorities

Name of authority:
State Veterinary and Food Administration of the Slovak Republic (under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic)

Mandate/competence:
animal health and welfare, food of animal and non-animal origin in all stages of production, processing and distribution except in the catering sector; feedingstuffs - feed materials of animal origin, feedingstuffs used directrly at farm level and medicated feedingstuffs; veterinary medicines and their residues, animal by-products
www.svps.sk; http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/country_profiles_en.cfm;
official controls + Rapis Alert System for Food and Feed contact point for the Slovak Republic + specialized national liaison body for the fraud in food and feed pertaining to the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation System within the EU + Infosan Emergency Contact Point

Name of authority:
Public Health Authority of the Slovak Republic (under Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic)
Mandate/competence:
Catering premises, of food in catering premises and of production and placing on the market of certain products (novel foods, food supplements, foods for specific groups (including food for infants and young children), people with specific medical conditions, people with gluten intolerance, people undertaking energy-restricted diet to lose weight), natural mineral water and spring water for infants and young children, food treated with ionising radiation and food contact materials). It is also responsible for official control of epidemiologically risky activities of staff involved in production, manipulation and placing the food on the market.
www.uvzsr.sk; http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/country_profiles_en.cfm

Name of authority:
Central Control and Testing Institute in Agriculture (under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic)
Mandate/competence:
Its activities cover the areas of seeds and propagating material, plant varieties, plant protection products, plant health, feedingstuffs and animal nutrition, organic production and fertilisers
www.uksup.sk

INFOSAN Emergency Contact Point

State Veterinary and Food Administration of the Slovak Republic, Botanická 17, 842 13 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Food safety and consumer protection – laws and regulations

The current list of legislation, related to food safety and consumer protection in each country, is extracted from FAO's database on Food Legislation FAOLEX. While FAOLEX makes every effort to serve as a high quality, reliable source of information, no guarantee is given that the information provided in FAOLEX is correct, complete, and up-to-date.

The national Codex programme

National Codex consultative mechanism

The National Codex Contact Point (NCCP) works under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic (MoAaRD). The NCCP contact point uses the system of national experts working groups for the consultative process. Working groups correspond to scopes of CA committees and task forces as well as the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) scientific panels. These experts come from research, official control, government and industry (through professional associations and 2 food/agricultural chambers). The head of the individual expert working group is a representative of SR and they are appointed to attend the relevant sessions of Codex Alimentarius as well as sessions of the European institutions and the EFSA bodies. The main task of working groups is considering documents, preparing background information for experts and all statements and positions for CA, EFSA and the European Commission. Cooperation among the NCCP, members of expert groups, Ministries proceeds mostly by e-mail. The mentioned structure of groups allows mutual foreknowledge, alternation of expert on sessions and to get the opinions from scientific, practice, legislative, control and producing areas points of view.
The Ministerial website www.land.gov.sk provides basic information from CA and gives direct link to Codex Alimentarius web for detailed information.

Providers of scientific and technical input to national consultation on Codex

Stakeholders come from research and industry (through professional associations and 2 food/agricultural chambers) and consumers.

Risk Assessments and Scientific Data

National bodies providing risk assessment and scientific advice

At the national level: risk assessment bodies - Food Research Institute, Universities (i.e. Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology Bratislava, Slovak Medical University, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice), Slovak Academy of Sciences.
The Slovak Republic is a member state of the European Union – The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the key stone of the European Union (EU) in risk assessment pertaining food and feed safety. In close collaboration with national authorities and in consultation with its stakeholders, EFSA provides independent scientific advice and clear communication on existing and emerging risks at the Community level. The role of EFSA’s Scientific Panels is to deliver scientific advice for Europe’s decision-makers in the areas of food and feed safety, nutrition, animal health and welfare, plant protection and plant health; http://www.efsa.europa.eu/

Risk assessment, risk profiles, scientific opinions

1). National risk assessment, surveillance projects are available on website of the National Focal point
http://www.mpsr.sk/index.php?navID=47&sID=111&navID2=525
2). EFSA scientific opinions, risk assessments, press releases, grants, procurements, guidelines, videos and other relevant documents. Translation of documents and their release into the Slovak language are available on the website of the National Focal Point
http://www.mpsr.sk/index.php?navID=47&sID=111&navID2=526

At the European level the SR shares information on planned risk assessment activities amongst Member States on R4EU Database.
1/ EFSA platform http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/search/site/Slovakia as well as
2) The EFSA Journal – an open-access, online scientific journal that publishes the scientific outputs of the European Food Safety Authority. EFSA’s various output types are devoted to the field of risk assessment in relation to food and feed and include nutrition, animal health and welfare, plant health and plant protection. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/search/site/Journal
3) Knowledge Junction – an open – access platform for sharing scientific data. https://zenodo.org/communities/efsa-kj/?page=1&size=20

Official Laboratories

Official Laboratory:
Official laboratories and their scope of competence are available on web sites
Official Competence:
http://www.svps.sk/zakladne_info/ustavy.asp
http://www.uvzsr.sk/en/index.php/regional-public-health-authorities-in-the-slovak-republic
http://www.uksup.sk/olc-cinnost-odboru
http://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/official_controls/legislation/ref-labs/index_en.htm

Surveillance of foodborne diseases and monitoring of food contamination

National surveillance systems – foodborne disease in humans

National level: Epidemiological information system (EPIS) provides online information about current state of the occurrence of communicable diseases and epidemics globally in Slovakia as well as in all the districts and regions of Slovakia and thus allows to take the necessary measures to eliminate the spread of these diseases. The system automatically evaluates and indicates an increased incidence of various communicable diseases monitored by statistical analysis at the level of the Slovak Republic. The system also meets the ECDC (European Centre for Diseases Prevention and Control) criteria of the quality on classification of communicable diseases and the quality of reporting data on communicable diseases. Link to EPIS web side: http://www.epis.sk
Slovak National Surveillance AMR system: https://www.snars.sk. This website provides the database which contains consecutive susceptibility data from Slovak clinical microbiology laboratories participating on the national EQC with the link to the Slovak Antimicrobial Reistance Veterinary Database SLOV-AR- VET http://www.saske.sk/atbres
International level: ECDC and WHO

National monitoring systems – foodborne hazards in the food chain

The National report which presents the assessment of the situation on zoonoses, foodborne diseases and water-borne diseases is prepared annually. It is based on data from food, feed, environment analyses and epidemiology in humans which were provided by official control bodies operating under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Health, from research institutes and universities. The Report describes the situation in zoonotic agents, foodborne outbreaks without zoonotic potential and infectious agents from the water. The reports contain also selected results obtained from AMR analysis. Selected information are available on website: http://www.mpsr.sk/index.php?navID=47&sID=111&navID2=506
Slovakia as a member state of the European Union is oblidged to collect data on the occurrence of zoonoses, zoonotic agents, AMR, animal population and food-borne outbreaks. EFSA examines these data and publishes annual EU Summary Reports in cooperation with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). ECDC provides and analyses the data on zoonotic infections in humans. The reports are available on the following website: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/zoonosesscdocs/zoonosescomsumrep.htm