Role and responsibilities of
Animal Health Research
Institute in
Aflatoxicosis
Prof Dr.Essam Mohamed Ibraheem
Director Deputy of Animal Health
Research
Institute
Egypt
Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
Agriculture Research Centre (ARC)
Animal Health Research Institute
(AHRI)
Administration
And Financial
Affairs
37 Provincial
Laboratories
14 Research
Departments and
11 Units
Reference
Laborator
y for
Health
Food
Reference
Laboratory
for
Veterinary
poultry
production
AHRI is the scientific backbone of the governmental

veterinary infrastructure
AHRI is the National Veterinary Laboratory for the

Egyptian Veterinary Services.
AHRI has a contact
and cooperation with 
international organisations (OIE, FAO, WHO, Harben
Institute …etc) and reference labs (Weybridge,
Pribright Lab. UK ,FAPAS , FERA…etc)

Testing and monitoring of all animal products and
by-products for presence or absence of all biological
agents.

Laboratory analysis of samples taken in all different
surveillance programs in cooperation with GOVS.

Act as reference institute for testing poultry
disease and harmful residues in food of animal
origin.
Performing
different surveillance programs in
cooperation with GOVS for endemic diseases of animal
and poultry
Veterinary
control on poultry industry in farms and
hatchery.
Efficacy
evaluation
of
veterinary
drugs
and
insecticides.
Detection
of pollution in water sources of animal,
poultry and fish farms.
Genetic analyzer 3500 applied biosystem
 Ultra speed cooling centrifuge (Beckman) up to
85000 RPM
 Real Time PCR 5 stratagene, step one
 LC-MSMS
 DNA synthesizer
 VITEC
 The most common Lab. instrument

Mycotoxicosis In Farm
Animal In Egypt
1.Introduction and definition of
problem:
 The
frequent contamination by fungi in
feeds has been causing serious problems
of food industry in Egypt.
 On the other hand, mycotoxins are
formed by some fungal species wherever
environmental factors are conductive
during harvesting, handling,
transportation and storage.
 The
mycotoxins have serious effects
upon the growth rates and health of
human being and animals as some of
mycotoxins has been found to be
carcinogenic, tremorgenic, hemorrhagic
and dermatitic for human and animals.
 This is direct the attention and researches
towards studying various methods to
prevent and control of mould growth and
mycotoxins contamination in feeds.
2- Causes and sources of toxicosis :

Direct method of Contamination : Feeding of
contaminated feed by the toxic fungi and their
mycotoxins.
 Indirect method of contamination: Feeding the
polluted feed or feed ingredients with toxic
fungi which under adverse environmental
condition produced the respective mycotoxins .
 Environmental factors pollution by toxic fungi
(worker hands ,utensils , water, air
….etc.)which by other .
The important toxic fungi
TOXIC FUGI
MYCOTOXINS
Aspergillus spp. (A)
A.flavus&A.parasiticus
aflatoxins(B1,B2,G1&G2)
A.ochraceus&P.viridicatum
ochratoxins .
Fusarium spp. (F.)
F.moniliforme&F.oxysporum
F.trichinactum
Zearalenone&FB1
Trichothecenes(T.2)
Penicillium spp.(P)
P.citrinum
P.patulum
Citrinin
Patuline
The important cases of mycotoxicosis
detected in Egypt( field cases)

Zearalenone and ochratoxins abortion in goat
detected at Borg-El Arab farm (Ragheb ,
1994) .
 Zearalenone and aflatoxin abortion in cow in
different governorat in Egypt (Hassan et al.,
2003 a) .
 T-2 toxicosis in poultry due consumption of
contaminated feed by Fusarium spp. ands their
toxins (particularly T-2)( Mansour et.al.,
2002)

Dermatological symptoms as in case of
Trichophyton and Fusarium infections
beside to cases of T-2 toxicosis ( Ragheb ,
1994) .
 Fumonisin B1 toxicosis in poultry due to feed
and environmental
contamination (Hassan et al.,2002)
 Respiratory infection of cow and buffalo
(Hassan and Rahmy ,2002 and Hassan et al.
,2004 a)mainly due to spp. of aspergillus
particularly A.fumigatus.
 Diarrhea
in poultry and large animals
which included combined infection by
fungi and mycotoxins beside to other
bacterial and viral causes (Hassan, 2003
b) .
 Nephropathy symptoms as in case of
ochratoxicosis which included urinary
tract infection and nephropathy (Hassan ,
1994 and 1998 and Hassan et al ., 2002,
2003 and 2004 a& b) .
A food contaminant is a substance not
intentionally added to food but is present in such
food as a result of manufacturing, processing,
preparation, treatment, packing, packaging,
transport or holding of such food, or as a result of
environmental contamination.
Several types of mycotoxins, produced by fungi
in foodstuffs such as nuts and dried fruits, are
examples of a natural contaminant.
Aflatoxins are unique in being resistant to
degradation
under
normal
food
processing conditions (Ciegler and
Vesonder, 1983). This makes the selection
of proper degradation methods that will
effectively decompose aflatoxins, while
retaining the nutritive quality and
palatability of the treated food, a
continuous challenge
*In general, the framework legislation of
a country states that any food
containing a contaminant in an amount
that is unacceptable from a public
health point of view, and in particular,
at a toxicological level, cannot be
marketed in that country. Contaminant
levels are required to be kept as low as
can reasonably be achieved by good
practice
*regulations in Egypt are established to
control the contaminants in foodstuffs
to protect human health;
- it include specific maximum limits for
several contaminants for different
foods
- a reference to the sampling methods
and performance criteria of analysis to
be used
*Egypt refers to the Commission
Regulation for setting up their national
maximum limits for OTA (ochratoxin A)
Although, the limits established are not
identical to those in the EU, they are
very similar.
The main purpose regarding food safety at national level is
the availability of safe products by means of a food safety
system based on
*the
adequate
coordination
of
risk
assessment,
its
management, and communication.
*These points provide a system to establish effective
measures or actions which are adequately proportioned,
effective and specific to protect consumers' health.
In full collaboration with Ministry of
Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Egypt,
Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
prepared the Country Programme Framework
2012–17 outlining how the organisation can
best complement efforts of the Government
of Egypt to meet its development
priorities
relating to agriculture, livestock, fisheries,
natural resources and rural development
objectives, including food and nutrition
security and generating job opportunities in
rural
areas
during
2012-2017
Strategic Objective: Drive policy reforms
to improve Egypt’s competitiveness and
address its looming food security crisis
through
i) development of a reliable user-friendly
information base of data, prior studies,
research;
ii) ii) identification of national challenges
and studying of success stories;
iii)
development
recommendations
of
policy
iv) promotion of public awareness of
challenges, success stories and policy
recommendations for the future.
5- Prevention and control of
mycotoxicosis

Hygienic measures for prevention mycotoxins
contamination in feeds
 Frequent examination program for feed
considering the permissible levels which must
not exceed 20 ppb.
 Proper transportation, handling , processing
and storage of feed
 The proper storage conditions must prevent
mould growth and mycotoxoins
production.(Proper aeration
Recent methods for control of mycotoxin
contamination:
 The chemical compound which used in
degradation of mycotoxins have strong effects
on biological system of human and animals
and cause sever toxic degenerative
pathological changes on body organs specially
liver and kidney .
 This direct the attention and researches
towards studying on the role displayed by wild
natural plant extract and biological methods on
decontamination of microorganism .

Recent and safe method for detoxification of
feed by extracts of natural plants , garlic ,
anion , mollases , citrus sineses , piper,
………..etc
 5-3-2 the use of antioxidant substances as
Zn,Selenium , Cobalt , Vits. A, E , B,and D
are added to feed of animal and poultry.
 Biological detoxification:
 Microbial detoxification: Using fungi and
bacteria
 Animal metabolism.
The biological approaches to mycotoxins
detoxification will be taken to mean the
biotransformation or degradation of mycotoxin
by endogenous enzymes to a metabolites that
either not toxic when ingested by animal or
less toxic than original toxin and readily
excreted from the body .
Future recommendation :
( Genetic engineering )

If the genes for the enzymes involved in
mycotoxin degradation could be isolated and
cloned. It might be possible to introduce these
characters into target crop species.
 Genetic engineering techniques permit the
introduction of single, desired traits into
agronomically important plants, and such
recombinant DNA methods could be coupled
with conventional breeding programs in the
generation of plant varieties, with an inbred
character yielding mycotoxin-detoxification
capability.
 This
is, at present, an entirely novel and
undeveloped area in mycotoxin research
 All programs for prevention and control
of mycotoxins in feeds will be reflected
in good animal health and high quality
products for human consumers.
*GAP (including storage) and
traceability problematic
*Great variation in process controls
and levels of mechanisation
*HACCP commonly not in place
aflatoxins in Domestic Foods
aflatoxins in Imported Foods
These programs are updated and reissued
periodically because of changes in
methodology, and number of products to
be collected.