Quantitative Risk Assessment for Aflatoxin and Fumonisin from Maize Consumption in Northern Tanzania
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Date
2018-09-13
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Internation Journal of Innovative Research & Development
Abstract
The study was on Quantitative risk assessment for population exposure to aflatoxin and fumonisin consuming maize in Northern Tanzania. This kind of assessment allow modelling maize consumption data (kg/kg body weight (bw)/day) using an estimated average weight of an adult of 60 Kg with previously collected data for total Aflatoxin (AF) and Fumonisin (FUM) contamination (µg/kg) maize samples from harvested, sorted, unsorted and maize flour from 2013/14 survey. Consumption was estimated by using national daily maize intake of 365 g/Kg BW/day and the exposure assessment was performed with the @RISK analysis software. Results from this assessment showed aflatoxin exposure was increasing from a mean value of 8.64, 8.96, 10.28 and 8.06 ng/kg BW/day for harvested, sorted, unsorted and maize flour respectively at the lower bound (LB). Maize flour had low exposure followed by sorted maize compared to unsorted and harvested maize. Fumonisin exposure was found to decrease from harvested, sorted, unsorted and maize flour with a mean value of 13.51, 6.87, 3.31 and 1.77 ng/kg BW/day respectively. Margin of Exposure (MoE) from this study were all below 10,000 for all scenarios for both AF and FUM and this is of public health concern. Even though all samples had aflatoxin and fumonisin contamination below maximum tolerable limit (MTL) of 10 µg/kg and 2 mg/kg respectively for East Africa standards, there is still a serious long-term health implication due to high levels of maize consumption in the study region. Meeting MTL will not by itself guarantee food safety, but using the data collected and available on various health effects from AF, FUM and other mycotoxins, it is important to incorporate them into a risk assessment and show how excessive consumption of foods meeting MTLs can still carry significant health risks.
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This Journal Article was Published by International Journal of Innovative Research & Development