Reducing the use of antibiotics in Kenyan food production
The Toxicology and Drug Metabolism Group has recently received 10 mill DKK from Danida for a new project seeking to combat antibiotic resistance in Kenya, by investigating the practice and reduce the use of antibiotics in the food production chain.
Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to public health and is estimated to cost 10 million lives in 2050 with most casualties in developing countries, according to the WHO. The major cause of antibiotic resistance is unintentional exposure to sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics, mainly via food. This exposure causes antibiotic resistance in the natural human intestinal flora, and renders therapeutic treatments useless during severe microbial infections.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, antibiotics are widely used in livestock production and has been seen as a quick fix for low productivity. Therefore, antibiotics are commonly found in food and milk, leading to unintended exposure of consumers to antibiotics and consequently resistant microbes.
The project will assess the presence of antibiotics and resistant microorganisms in milk and chicken meat in the Kenyan production chain, determine the health effects of unintended exposure of farmer and consumers to antibiotics and resistant bacteria and suggest interventions for Kenyan policy makers to improve human health.
An important aspect of the project is capacity building. The project will build a complete analytical chemical LCMS laboratory at the University of Nairobi, to develop quantitative LCMS (liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry) methods for assessing antibiotics in biological samples.
A similar project: Building LCMS laboratory at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.
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About the project leader
Associate Professor Bjarne Styrishave is project leader of the new Danida project.