The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) in the last six months jailed five food vendors and closed down a restaurant for flouting food safety regulations.

It also confiscated the items of 17 food vendors, Mrs Florence Kuukyi, Director, Metro Publlic Health Department, AMA, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

She said some of the vendors sold expired food, ingredients and cooked in unclean places.

Mrs Kuukyi said others had kitchen staff, who were not medically screened or were suffering from infectious diseases, which could be transmitted to consumers.

She said her office was embarking on education, training, screening, and monitoring of food vendors at supermarkets, drinking spots, school canteens, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, chop bars and food stands and called for support.

Mrs Kuukyi said they were going to enforce regulations on the covering of hair while cooking, no wearing of nail extensions and polish and the no wearing of dangling earrings.

She said over 1,868 food vendors had been screened since January and certified to sell food.

Mrs Kuukyi said food was one of the “drivers that sustains humans” so, there was the need to always ensure food safety and advised the public to take responsibility for whatever they consumed ensuring that every morsel was safe to swallow.