Dagi Kimani
27 September 2008
Nairobi — Just how safe is the milk we are drinking? That is the question many are asking themselves, following the Chinese baby-milk crisis in which over 60,000 infants have been poisoned, half a dozen died, and hundreds or even thousands suffered life-long organ damage.
Kenya will probably never experience a crisis on such scale, but medical experts warn that the country's health and veterinary authorities need to work harder to guarantee the quality of locally produced milk.
In Kenya's case, they say, that risk arises not from such industrial chemicals as melamine -- in the Chinese crisis -- but by a variety of medicines and naturally-occurring germs.
Last November, researchers released a little noticed 100-page report in the East African Medical Journal (EAMJ), urging greater efforts to ensure that locally produced milk did not get contaminated with germs that cause such diseases as tuberculosis and brucellosis.
Other contaminants which could pose health risks, they said, include antibiotic residue and the deadly aflatoxin.
The toxin usually reaches the milk from the grains the animals are fed on. EAMJ, published by the Kenya Medical Association, is the region's only medical publication recognised internationally. The milk report is composed of eight studies conducted in Dagoretti, Nairobi.
Prof E.K Kang'ethe, who teaches in the department of public health at the University of Nairobi's College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, warns in the report that dairy production involving stall-fed cattle may provide environments that are conducive to animal diseases that can affect humans.
Other researchers involved with the latest studies were from the University of Nairobi, the ministries of Agriculture and Health, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
The findings of the eight studies are particularly significant because of the growing stature of urban dairy farming in Kenya, although their findings also apply to milk produced in the rest of the country.
A 1993 study established that Nairobi was home to 23,000 head of cattle, 75 per cent of them dairy, which produced milk with an annual market value of nearly Sh1 billion. A more recent study, in 2000, found that the city was home to at least 28,000 goats.
Aflatoxins in milk produced around Nairobi constitute the most immediate risk to human health, according to last year's report. Nearly half the milk samples collected for one of the studies, 45.5 per cent, were found to contain the chemicals.
Aflatoxins are poisons produced by fungi which grow on cereals and pulses under certain temperature and humidity conditions. Although the body can withstand small quantities, large amounts can lead to severe liver damage, resulting in death. Long-term exposure also raises the risk of cancer.
In 2004, aflatoxin poisoning in Eastern Province as a result of eating contaminated maize led to the deaths of 125 of 317 people admitted to hospital.
"Our study does suggest that aflatoxin contamination of milk and animal feeds may be widespread and risk assessment needs to be done to determine exact contamination and exposure levels," reads the report.
Similarly worrying is the presence of medical residue in milk. Medical experts say that this occurs when milk from sick animals treated with drugs such as antibiotics is obtained for consumption without observing the stipulated time to enable the animal break down the drug completely.
Those who consume the medicines contaminated milk run the risk of contracting bacteria which is resistant to these drugs, since the bacteria would have been exposed to the drugs in small quantities. Drug residue can also reach humans if the treated animals are slaughtered for meat.
According to the study that investigated this problem, at least three per cent of milk produced in Nairobi is contaminated with the antibiotics tetracycline and penicillin.
Another study in 2005 had found a contamination rate of 16 per cent, raising the possibility that higher rates of contamination would have been established if the presence of other groups of antibiotics had been studied.
"Our recommendations to address this problem include more education for the farmers to observe milk 'withdrawal periods' after antibiotic use, surveillance by veterinary services, and the study of the socio-economic incentives that can be given to encourage farmers (not to sell their milk after they have treated their animals)," says a report compiled by Dr C.E. Ekuttan and four other researchers.
Food poisoning
In another study reported by the journal, at least 2.2 per cent of the milk was in one case found to be contaminated with a bacteria called E. coli, which can cause serious food poisoning, especially in young children and the elderly.
Other than drinking unboiled milk, a person can contract the bacteria through a variety of ways, including from contaminated water.
The latter mode of transmission is significant since the bacteria was also found to be present in 5.2 per cent of sampled cattle dung.
Other studies in the special report point to the risk of milk carrying germs that cause such diseases as tuberculosis, brucellosis and cryptosporidiosis. The latter are infections which are particularly lethal in people who are infected with HIV.
Ten per cent of all animals tested during the TB study were found to have been exposed to the disease, while at least one per cent of milk samples were found to be contaminated with the germs that cause brucellosis.
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