Detection of Antibiotic Residues in Broiler Chickens in Gaza Strip

Abstract

Residues of veterinary drugs in food have received much attention in recent years because of growing food safety concerns. There are serious effects of antibiotics residues in meat for human consumption (e.g., increase antimicrobial resistance, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and hypersensitivity). The presence of antibiotics residues and their associated harmful health effects on humans make the control of veterinary drug residues an important measure in ensuring consumer protection. The objective of this study is to evaluate the presence of some antimicrobial residues in broilers slaughtered in Gaza strip. The study covered the five governorates of Gaza strip and lasted from January to June 2014. Three hundred sixty five chicken breast samples were collected from poultry slaughterhouses distributed over the study area. All samples were tested for the presence of β-lactams, aminoglycosides, macrolides and tetracyclines (as groups) using a bioassay method recommended by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Chicken carcasses were divided into three categories according to their weights; category (A); £1.5 kg, category (B); > 1.5-2 kg and category (C)>2 kg. Of the 365 tested samples, 88 samples were positive for one or more of antibiotic residues (24.1%), more than half of them (53.41%) were from category (A), followed by (32.95%) for category (B) and the least category contains residues were group (C) (13.63%). The most detected antibiotic residues were tetracyclines 41(43.15%) followed by aminoglycosides 26(27.36%) then 20 (21%) and 8(8.42%) for β-lactams and macrolides respectively. A confirmatory method like gas chromatography (GC) is recommended to be used to determine residues compliance with the maximum residue limits. In conclusion, results confirmed the presence of antibiotic residues in poultry meat samples collected from Gaza strip. This may pose potential hazard to public health. Thus, it is recommended that rules should be taken to ensure observing proper withdrawal periods before marketing and drug control in veterinary use. In addition, a monitoring policy should be implemented to ensure the conformity of poultry meat sold in Gaza strip with international standards.