Parliament’s Committees of Agriculture and that of Health want the government to straightaway design a public information program to sensitize the public about the risks posed by mycotoxin contamination to human health.
This is in a report on a motion for a resolution of Parliament urging the government to prioritize interventions to address challenges of mycotoxin contamination which has been adopted.
The chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Hon. Janet Okori-Moe, says that the prevalence of mycotoxin contamination is still unknown to the public.
According to the report, infants and children are at risk since maize contains the highest level of mycotoxins and is consumed in many schools adding that baby foods too, contain mycotoxins.
“The committees observed that the level of exposure by Ugandans to mycotoxins is high since the most affected food types are staple foods which are widely consumed and they contain more than one type of mycotoxin,” read the report in part.
Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by various fungi that contaminate food crops, animal feeds, and the environment, especially under conditions of high humidity, dry weather near crop maturity, high moisture content during harvest, inadequate drying, and poor storage practices.
“Uganda experiences a total of 3,700 new cases of aflatoxin-induced liver cancer per year. Further, the risk of developing liver cancer when individuals are exposed to aflatoxins is 30 times higher in people exposed to the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) compared to those who are not,” said Okori-Moe.
The committees found that there are over 200 known mycotoxins but those of health and economic concern are few, including aflatoxin whose most known health effect is liver cancer.
The committees add that whereas the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) has interventions to curb mycotoxin contamination, there is limited awareness among the general public and farmers about the existence of solutions to curb mycotoxin contamination in food crops and animal feeds.
The report also points out that Uganda loses an estimated $US38 million annually in lost export opportunities due to aflatoxins.
