Determination of oxytetracycline concentrations in fresh beef sold in Mbale city, eastern Uganda.

Abstract

Oxytetracycline is one of the antimicrobial drugs used for prophylactic treatment of different livestock diseases. These microbial drugs are used indiscriminately and this has attributed to accumulation of their residues within the food of animal origin. Man is exposed to these different drug residues through consumption of these contaminated animal products like beef and milk. Drug residues are determined within these animal products by use of different methods such as physio-chemical analysis for example LC/MS and HPLC, and immunological methods like ELISA. The study aimed at producing baseline data about the concentrations of oxytetracycline residues in raw beef sold in Mbale city, Eastern Uganda and compared their concentrations with the international acceptable maximum limits F.A.O/W.H.O. A cross sectional study was done and 30 samples i.e. 10 liver samples, 10 kidney samples and 10 liver samples were collected randomly once from different butcher points in Mbale city. They samples were transported to Wandegeya analytical laboratory for analysis. Out of the 10 samples of liver, 7 contained oxytetracycline residues. For the case of muscles samples, only 5 out of the 10 contained oxytetracycline residues and for kidneys, 7 out of the 10 samples contained tetracycline residues. The detected concentrations were higher than their respective F.A.O/W.H. O recommended maximum limits 200 µg/kg in the muscles, in the kidney is 1200 µg/kg and within the liver its, 600 µg/kg. This was attributed to failure to observe the withdraw periods of these antimicrobial drugs and also indiscriminate usage of these drugs. The findings showed a lower proportion being negative with a percentage of 33.3% (no oxytetracycline residues were contained within them) and a higher proportion of samples were positive with a percentage of 63.3% (samples contained oxytetracycline residues) above their recommended limits. There was no significant difference between the different samples collected from the various butcher points within Mbale city, Eastern Uganda. The study recommended public awareness about presence of these drugs residues within the animal food products which has health effects. It also recommended continuous assessment and monitoring of these drug residues within beef produced from Mbale city and Uganda at large.