Description
Relatório elaborado em: 22-Mai-2013 EFSA supporting publications 2014:EN-537 (External Scientific Report) ABSTRACT: The present report describes the work done in the project Implementation of the Electronic Transmission of Chemical Occurrence Data in Portugal. The objective of the project was to implement and test an electronic system for the transmission of food contaminant data to EFSA and create a national database, according to EFSA standards. This document describes also the challenges encountered during the implementation of the standard model and makes a general analysis on its limitations and potential developments. SUMMARY: The collection of analytical data on food and feed is an important task of the European Food Safety Authority - EFSA and an essential component in risk assessment. Following the statements of Regulation (EC) n.º 178/2002 Member States (MS) have the responsibility to report to EFSA data produced under the official control of food and feed. This information reached EFSA under various formats and supports - paper, various digital formats, among others - compromising their use due to the slowness and difficulty of compiling and comparing data. Therefore, and in order to improve the comparability of technical data received and analyzed and facilitate their transmission, EFSA created in 2010, a data model that standardizes the language and the information to report about each sample and each test result designated by “Standard Sample Description for food and feed” – SSD and the “Guidance on Data Exchange”, both recommended for use for data transmissions by MS.
Portugal, through INSA, applied to EFSA’s call for proposals CFP/EFSA/DATEX/2011/01 with the project "Implementation of Electronic transmission of chemical occurrence data in Portugal”, (Grant agreement CFP/EFSA/DATEX/2011/01/02) which had the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) as a mentor country.
FSAI past experience on implementing proper software and tools to support the SSD format, was a crucial starting point for executing the project and provided Portuguese authorities an important assistance with standards compliance, database structure and data submissions.
This project that started in December 2011, was implemented in close collaboration with the competent authorities and official national laboratories, and had as main objectives: i) the creation of an informatic system and a national database for the collection and transmission of electronic data from chemical contaminants in food and feed according to the data model SSD, ii) the compilation and transmission of national data produced from 2009 to 2011, and iii) the standardization and improvement of data collection in this area.
This document describes the encoding and mapping strategy for chemical occurrence data produced by the Portuguese authorities, how the national database is populated, the transformations required to support the SSD standard terminology supplied by EFSA and how these transformations will be maintained in the future. It also describes the initiatives to standardize and improve data collection for chemical occurrence in food and feed.
; Lopes, Ana 
