ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has called for an urgent need to enhance awareness about the multi-layered safety management mechanism to ensure availability of safe food and water at affordable prices to the people.

“With hundreds of lives lost every year as a result of unhygienic and unsafe food and water borne diseases, accreditation is critical in evaluating competence and credibility of the entities engaged in the safety management system of food and water,” President Zardari said in his message on the World Accreditation Day.

President Zardari said this year’s theme ‘Accreditation:Supporting safe food and clean drinking water’ is of special significance to the developing countries like Pakistan where issues of unsafe drinking water and unhygienic food have been compounded by the lack of awareness about accreditation and inadequacy of accreditation services. (APP)