核技术助力泰国食品出口

The BQCLP’s laboratory has a key role in regional food safety control, as it serves as an ASEAN Food Reference Laboratory for Veterinary Drug Residues. To maintain this status, it requires ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, the international standard for testing and calibration laboratories. The training from the IAEA and FAO helped the BQCLP laboratory maintain this standard, enabling countries from the region to continue sending samples for analysis to the laboratory, providing quicker test results at a lower cost than if samples were sent to countries further afield.

Analytical techniques are also being passed on to experts in other countries through a regional project framework, and scientists from the ASEAN are region receiving training in Thailand to enhance food safety control in their home countries. Since the beginning of the regional project in 2016 and a supplementary national project in 2018, 27 scientists have been trained by the BQCLP’s laboratory.

Cambodia is one of the countries that has benefitted from Thailand’s new expertise. Two of its laboratory analysts were trained at the BQCLP. “Two of our laboratory analysts gained valuable knowledge and experience on food safety testing at BQCLP that we are now applying to our developing laboratory,” said Nget Kiry, Head of Cambodia’s Veterinary Drug and Drug Residue Laboratory of the National Animal Health and Production Research Institute.