Contaminated maize. Aflatoxin causes liver cancer, suppresses the immune system and retards growth and development of children. FILE
East African states are set to scale up use of biological methods to fight deadly aflatoxin to avert health risks and boost regional agricultural exports.
The biological means include introducing naturally occurring non-toxic strains of aflatoxin to fight the weaker poisonous strains and application of bio-pesticides such “aflasafe KE01” being developed in Kenya.
“Millions in the region consume high and unsafe levels of aflatoxin on a daily basis despite its adverse health and economic effects on food production and supply value chain,” said Jesca Eriyo, EAC deputy secretary general in charge of productive and social sectors, in a statement.
The cancer-causing poisonous strains — Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus — are naturally occurring fungi that affect people who consume them directly in grain, milk, meat or via animal fed on contaminated grain.
Aflatoxin mostly affects maize, sorghum, rice, wheat, groundnuts and cassava, the region’s staples.
Experts say the poisonous fungus readily finds its way to dining tables because the region’s produce is either bought at farm gates or exchanged within borders where grains do not undergo serious quality testing.
Apart from liver cancer, aflatoxin suppresses the immune system, retards growth and development of children and causes diseases such as aflatoxicosis in livestock.
The renewed campaign to reduce its spread comes barely five months after Kenya’s post-harvest specialist Charity Mutegi received a global acclaim for her role in crafting biological tools to fight the fungus.
A regional workshop on aflatoxin will be held in Bujumbura on Thursday. It will be attended by agriculturalists, health experts and trade policy officials from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
The EAC council of ministers directed Agriculture, Trade and Health ministries to combine forces in addressing the menace.
Dr Mutegi, the co-ordinator of the Aflasafe Project of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture is one of the experts expected to make presentation at the Burundi forum.
Aflatoxin destroys up to 40 per cent of Kenya’s annual grain production.
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