EAC partner states seize up aflatoxins challenge

Dr Seif Rashid Suleiman

Tanzania is at risk of losing billions of shillings in export trade earnings annually due to aflatoxin contamination in grains, legumes and other foods on account of poor storage facilities.

Deputy Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Rashid Suleiman made the observation here at midweek at the launching of a three-year Aflatoxin Control and Improved Nutrition Program in East African countries, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

He said Tanzania is among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa vulnerable to the toxins – whose intensity or level of loss occurring due to the damage has not been assessed.

Aflatoxin is a food poison created by a naturally occurring fungus (Aspergillus flavus), commonly found in soils and affecting stored produce, with about 30 percent of harvested produce regularly contaminated. The toxin reduces immune functions and cause stunting in children and liver cancers in adults.

The deputy minister said crop toxicity affects trade and economic growth, as food with unsafe levels of aflatoxin harms local consumers and fails to penetrate export markets.

Some of the strategies in place to tackle the problem include raising awareness on farmers to properly dry their produce and setting up proper storage facilities.

“Farmers also need to get into good farming practices,” he said, urging collective efforts for countries in East Africa as aflatoxin has no boundaries as contaminated crops are ferried across borders.

“Aflatoxin is a serious challenge,” he said, noting that exporting grain abroad requires certification of being free from mycotoxins on the basis of levels approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The World Bank estimates that Africa loses over US$750 million in export trade earnings annually due aflatoxin contamination.

Uledi Mussa, the deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of East African Cooperation, stated that modernity contributes to the spread of the toxin, as traditional granaries were effective and crops did not rot upon harvesting.

He said the government was doing its best in ensuring that farmers have good storage facilities at family or village level.

Jesca Eriyo, the EAC Deputy Secretary General for productive sector and social services, also challenged East African countries to team up in confronting the spread of aflatoxins, noting that the fungus is dangerous to humans as it propels retarded growth in children as well as adult cancers.

East Africa’s share of global exports has declined over the past decade due to high levels of aflatoxin contamination, a situation that needs countries to team up and scale-up the fight against toxicity.

“Working as a team, we can formulate solutions and take important policy and program action to confront the problem,” she said.

Aflatoxin cannot be destroyed by cooking or normal food processing, the top official noted, elaborating that the fungus is virulent and with detrimental health effects transmitted from mother to child or from animals into their food products such as eggs, milk and meat.

In her remarks, Kenya’s deputy director of agriculture, Beatrice King’ori, said farmers in Kenya were being instructed on the best ways of handling produces from farms to storage and to the market, because “we came to learn that some of the crops are contaminated with aflatoxin when they are not properly stored.”

USAID official Francesca Nelson said that the three-year US$3million program is designed to better understand the impact of aflatoxins on health, agriculture, and trade.

It also seeks to raise consumer and producer awareness of the issue, investigate methods to control aflatoxins in East Africa and create policies and programs to improve nutrition, she said.

Globally it is estimated that aflatoxins contribute to varying levels of live cancers, from 4.6 per cent to 28.2 percent of lcases. WHO figures indicate that each year, about 550,000 to 600,000 new liver cancer cases are recorded worldwide, with up to 25,200 in the last or 155,000 in higher instances attributable to aflatoxin exposure.

In 2008, liver cancer was the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with the global liver cancer burden primarily borne by Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Western Pacific nations, she added