Due to the Corona pandemic, the 12th ESAN meeting took place virtually on 1 September 2020. The meeting welcomed 49 participants, including 43 representatives of 25 Member States, invited speakers and WHO staff.
Eleven countries provided updates on implementation of national salt reduction actions. These included new or updated reformulation initiatives, new standards for food in schools, results of monitoring of sodium levels and evaluation of ongoing or recently completed reformulation initiatives, results of new studies to measure salt intakes, piloting of new methods to assess sodium levels in the out-of-home sector and the introduction of new front-of-pack labelling schemes. In addition, new practical guidance and tools were presented to support countries in the development and implementation of salt reduction strategies and activities. Ongoing WHO work to support countries, develop global sodium benchmarks and obtain commitments from the international food and beverage industry to reduce sodium levels was highlighted.
