engleski

AFLATOXINS IN CORN, CORN PRODUCTS AND MILK IN CROATIA IN 2012 AND 2013

Aflatoxins (AF), the secondary metabolites produced by fungi belonging to Aspergillus section Flavi, present a serious health hazard for human and animals. Their toxicity includes both genotoxic and cytotoxic effects. Aflatoxigenic species of Aspergillus can contaminate different food and feed stuff including cereal grains. Contamination of seeds and other feed components can occur both in pre and postharvest period. In Europe the contamination with aflatoxins were considered more a problem of imported food/feed stuff or bad storage conditions than contamination in field. For contamination in field environmental conditions rarely present in European countries are required: high temperature, over 35°C, and drought period in summer. But in last decades these conditions occurred several times in central and south-east Europe. In the spring of 2013 there was an outbreak of contamination of Croatian milk with AFM1. In Croatia the summer 2012 was drought and unusually hot, the mean temperatures in Jun and July were 3-4°C above the mean temperatures registered in last 10 years. The consequence was maize contamination by aflatoxigenic fungi in field. In our analysis about 20% of 124 samples of maize produced in 2012 in Croatian region of Slavonia and 28% of corn based cattle feed presented concentrations of AFB1 above the EU limits. The analysis of 1250 samples of milk produced in Croatia between February and March of 2013 showed that in 23% of examined samples concentration of AFM1 were above the EU limits. Our data confirms the validity of EU limits for AF concentration in feed for diary animals. Moreover these results indicates that the outbreak of contamination of Croatian milk by AFM1 in 2013 was more due to the contamination of corn occurred in field than due the inadequate storage conditions.

aflatoxinB1 ; Aflatoxin M1 ; feed ; milk

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