Abstract
Importation of poultry produce into Nigeria through its land borders has heightened, notwithstanding the government's ban on such products. This study examined imported frozen poultry products for antibiotic residues considering their health implications. A solid-phase extraction method using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in the positive and negative electrospray ionisation and the multiple reaction monitoring modes were employed. The antibiotics were extracted with acetonitrile-dichloromethane. Chromatographic separation was on Waters Acquity UPLC® BEH C18 column with acetonitrile, and water gradient and the antibiotics analysed using Electrospray positive ionisation polarity switch in a single run of fourteen minutes. Residues of nineteen (19) antibiotics were found in the three different matrices at different levels with varying detection frequencies ranging between 2 and 4% (sulfamoxole, penicillin-G, albendazole and phebendazole) and 14-54% for all the other antibiotics. The highest number of violative samples was found in the turkey gizzard and chicken muscle. Sulfixosazole had the highest percentage violation of 80.00% in turkey gizzard while sulfamethoxazole, notwithstanding its lower frequency in chicken muscle had highest maximum concentration and 100% violation. The presence of these drugs, however, does not pose any immediate health risk.
Highlights
Feeding a global population that will near 10 billion by the year 2050 has led to heavy antibiotic consumption, estimated at 63151 ± 1560 tons in 2010 in poultry production [1]
Antimicrobial resistance is an emerging global threat to public health and the gains made with the discovery of antibiotics, since bacterial resistance genes deriving from animal microbiome can be transferred to human microbiota; [4], and this has been reported in Sub-Sahara Africa [5]
Frozen turkey gizzard had all the sulfonamides but with maximum concentration in most instances below the maximum residue limit (MRL) and percentage violation that was limited to sulfadimethoxine (16.67%), sulfamerazine and sulfamethazine, 33.33% each while sulfixosazole had the highest percentage violation of 80.00% in turkey gizzard
Summary
Feeding a global population that will near 10 billion by the year 2050 has led to heavy antibiotic consumption, estimated at 63151 ± 1560 tons in 2010 in poultry production [1]. Health concerns including antimicrobial resistance arise with over-consumption of products believe to contain antibiotic residues [4]. Antibiotic residues in poultry tissues may consist of the original parent compounds as well as its transformation products or conjugates, and possibly all could be present together resulting in direct toxic effect on consumers and allergic reactions in hypersensitive individuals, and above all it has been implicated as one of the leading causes of antimicrobial resistance in human pathogens [6]. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned about an imminent antimicrobial resistance crisis, putting the antibiotic era at risk if urgent remedial actions are not taken to reduce antibiotic usage in human and veterinary medicine [7]
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