Farmer milks his cow in Busia, Kenya |
The Kenya Dairy
Board (KDB) has raised concern over unsafe milk sold by dairy farmers
that contain high residues of drugs such as antibiotics, pesticides and
preservatives.
Mr Kaberia Murungi,
a manager with the Kenya Dairy Board, Voi branch, said samples tested
over the past one year discovered milk that was unfit for human
consumption as it had a high concentration of drug residues.
He blamed dairy farmers for failing to observe withdrawal periods after their dairy cows had been treated.
According to the
board, the biannual quality survey report covering July to October this
year showed a high bacteria load of up to ten million per millilitre of
milk, way above the acceptable two million per millilitre.
The study randomly
recruited 152 vendors and 207 farmers from four randomly selected urban
centres in a cross-sectional study. It interviewed them using a
pre-tested standardised questionnaire.
The 100-ml raw milk sample was collected from each vendor and farm, and tested for antimicrobial residues.
"What we found out
was scary, thirty-two of the 207 (15.5 per cent) samples from farmers
and 28 (18.4 per cent) of the 152 samples from vendors tested positive
for antimicrobial residues. This means that the practice is very
common," he said.
Other findings
showed that 20 per cent of samples collected from farmers and a quarter
of samples from vendors had been adulterated with water. The study was
first published in Pan African Medical Journal.
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