26
research
OMAN DAILY Observer
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2009
Detection of melamine in meat and
meat products in Omani markets
The determination
of melamine
concentrations in meat
samples was carried
out using the Enzyme
Linked Immunosorbent
Assay (ELISA) at
the Department of
Animal and Veterinary
Sciences, College of
Agricultural and Marine
Sciences at Sultan
Qaboos University
M
eat contamination
with various chemical and biological
residues is one of the major
concerns all around the world.
Although there is a significant
increase in foodborne outbreaks of diseases worldwide,
the chemical contamination of
meat and meat products is still
the most important issue for
consumers.
Meat and meat products
might be contaminated with
environmental materials such
as pesticides, chemical, biological and natural toxins as
a result of processing and
packaging. Contamination can
also occur through the use of
veterinary drugs such as antibiotics, hormones, growth promotents as results of mass production, commercialised feed
formulation such as melamine.
Melamine is commonly used
to produce various products,
including plates, plastic resins,
and components of paper and
paperboard that may come into
contact with food.
An investigation was carried out by Dr Isam Kadim
(pictured), Dr Osman Mahgoub and Rabea al Maqbaly to
find out the level of melamine
in meat and meat products
available in the Omani market.
The study revealed that some
meat and meat products available in the Omani market are
contaminated with melamine.
Dr Isam Kadim (Head: Department of Animal and Veterinary
Sciences) was interviewed to
highlight more details regarding the potential human health
hazards associated with consuming meat contaminated
with melamine.
Dr Kadim addressed the
objectives of this investigation and emphasised the seriousness of meat contamination with melamine in Omani
markets. These challenges and
recommendations can be used
to eliminate food contaminants
by implementing guidelines
and rules. Increased levels of
melamine in food beyond the
maximum residue limit can affect human health. He stated
that the average concentration
of melamine in food from approved industrial uses is estimated at less than 0.015 mg/
kg. This level of melamine in
food is minute and does not
pose a public health concern.
Intentional addition of melamine to food, however, does
pose a significant risk.
The discovery of melamine in pet food, animal feed
and protein sources including wheat gluten, rice protein
concentrate, and corn gluten
created an urgent need for a
rapid method for detecting
melamine in food. Subsequent
to the pet food incident, it was
discovered that waste material from manufactures of pet
food was contaminated with
either melamine alone or in
combination with cyanuric
acid which had been added to
chicken feed. During this time,
investigators also learnt that
contaminated wheat gluten
had been used in manufacturing aquaculture feeds.
In China, melamine was
added to diluted milk for the
manufacture of powdered
infant formula. The adulterated infant formula resulted in
50,000 cases of kidney stones,
mostly among children under
three years of age.
The Omani market is open
for various types of meat and
meat products from all around
the world. Currently there is a
growing awareness and concern about contaminates and
residuals of various harmful
materials on human health.
Omani people are quite aware
of hazards of meat contaminants including those of melamine. Therefore, screening of
melamine residues in meat and
meat products is very important. This should be carried out
through the most sophisticated
and highly sensitive methods
to determine melamine concentrations in meat and meat
products in the Omani market.
Fifty-one meat and meat prod-
uct samples representing cattle, sheep and poultry, burger,
sausages, mortadella, salami
and mince meat were randomly collected. The 51 meat
samples represented 35 local, regional and international
companies. The determination
of melamine concentrations in
meat samples was carried out
using the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA)
at the Department of Animal
and Veterinary Sciences, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences at Sultan Qaboos
University.
The results revealed that
chicken from 8 out of 16 poultry companies sampled are
selling products contaminated
with melamine in the range of
25.6 to 73.0 mg/kg. Those values were much higher than the
maximum residue limit, which
may cause kidney stones. Fifty
per cent of poultry meat tested
was found to be contaminated
with more than the maximum
residue limit of melamine.
The high levels of melamine
in meat and meat products
must be taken seriously as
poultry meat consumption has
increased by 75-80 per cent
among Omanis in recent years.
This increase has occurred as
a result of better education, an
increase in income and low
price of chicken compared to
other meats.
The study also showed that
concentrations of melamine
in poultry processing such as
sausages, burger and mince
meat ranged between 0.00 and
35.2 mg/kg. However, melamine concentrates in cattle and
sheep meat samples were below the maximum residue limit. These results indicated that
some of the poultry companies
may have used feeds contaminated with melamine.
This incident prompted
many countries and regions
worldwide, including China,
Hong Kong, Australia, New
Zealand, the USA, Canada
and the European Union, to
establish action limits for the
presence of melamine and/or
melamine and its analogues
in foods. The findings of this
study confirmed that the public perception and governmental response must be of
paramount importance in setting a regulatory framework
and determining the rate and
direction of the diffusion of
the contaminated meat and
meat products with melamine
or any other contaminates in
the Sultanate of Oman. This
entails identifying “Minimum
Residue Level”, which should
be the official procedure for
evaluating the safety of the
residues of melamine in food
products. This can be achieved
by establishing laboratories
equipped with sophisticated
instruments to detect for contaminants in food before it
is delivered to the markets to
ensure there are no adverse effects on human health. Moreover, the authorised government
agencies should establish technical committees to eliminate
the spread of contamination
in meat and meat products in
the Omani market and protect
public health. Suppliers of
contaminated free meat and
meat products in the Omani
market need to strengthen
routine sampling and develop
techniques to monitor potential hazards of contaminated
food on human health through
liaison between local and international organisations.
The need for
developing a
research culture
By Dr Mansour bin Saif al Manthari,
Dean, College of Medicine and Health Sciences
P
eoples and nations take pride in their research
achievements represented in their scientific discoveries and in innovations which make their life easier.
This status is not attained by chance or through luck, but
come as a logical result of continuous and incessant effort
in developing a research culture. Since 1970, the Sultanate
of Oman has made considerable progress in developing research infrastructures as well as in the Omanisation of research activities through SQU and the Research Council.
Recent years have witnessed a continuous increase in
budgets allocated to research and in the availability of
laboratories. Yet an important issue is whether financial
support itself is sufficient to create a research environment
in the Sultanate.
Clearly, the basic requirement for creating a research
environment is a researcher who can use his/her scientific
skills as a platform for discovery and for raising hypotheses which are tested for the sake of arriving at solutions
and proofs. He should not accept without scrutiny what is
merely available and familiar.
It is difficult to acquire these research skills at an advanced educational stage by writing MA theses or PhD
dissertations; rather it is best acquired at a much earlier
stage, which is why schools and parents should play a major role in shaping a research mentality. Thus, emphasising
infrastructures alone in creating a research culture may not
yield the desired results if it is not accompanied by a serious process of fostering this same culture in the minds of
pupils in the early school years.
Consequently, I believe that Omanis should become
aware of the significance of research values and voluntarily participate in research whenever possible.
Schools are the cornerstone of innovation, so teaching
should depend more on comprehension and innovation
and less on memorisation and mechanical feedback. This
is not attained by teaching research as a subject in the curriculum, but by making research a style of teaching, learning, and practice. Simultaneously, evaluation which is only
based on memorisation and feedback information should
gradually diminish and be replaced by an evaluation based
on understanding and innovation. This requires a major
effort but it is achievable if we succeed in changing the
evaluation paradigm.
Research, it must be emphasised, is a lifestyle which
is not created in the final years of university studies, but
must, like a seed, be planted at a much earlier stage. I call
upon those in charge of research in councils and universities, in co-operation with the Ministry of Education, to direct their attention to young people in their formative years
and to inculcate in them the mentality of the discoverer and
researcher. Infrastructures and budgets can be allocated to
form and encourage conducive research environments in
schools.
Research development is a difficult task, but it can be
achieved through the combined efforts of all sectors of
society as they work to make it a lifestyle and a national
obligation for the sake of preserving the achievements of
our blessed Renaissance.
New workshops to improve the skills Strategic research is an important part of SQU’s research drive
of postgraduate students and faculty
S
ince theoretical and
practical training is a vital requirement for producing quality research in any
academic field, and because
of the difficulties faced by
postgraduate students in improving their research skills,
and academic advisers in their
supervising of MA theses and
PhD dissertations, the Deanship of Postgraduate Studies
has introduced workshops
to address these problems.
These workshops aim to acquaint postgraduate students
with the literature of their research topics and to develop
analytical and experimental
abilities since such skills are
not covered in undergraduate
programmes. The workshops
depend primarily on the expertise of SQU specialists and
academics, and are offered
free of charge to employees
and senior postgraduate students. Participants with complete attendance records will
be given certificates at the end
of the workshops. Currently,
the Deanship of Postgraduate
Studies supervises the following workshops:
1. Supervision of postgraduate research
This workshop aims to help
faculty improve the quality of
their postgraduate supervision
by enhancing their skills and
thus helping them to train their
students to work independently. The target audience is the
academic supervisors, and it
An interview with Saif al Sinani,
Director, Department of
Research and Innovation Affairs
will be conducted in English.
2. Writing and publishing
research paper
This workshop introduces
researchers to the range of
skills needed to take a piece
of research from the proposal
stage to a paper published in
an international journal. Special emphasis is placed on
designing the paper, dealing
with editors and reviewers,
and handling ethical issues.
The target audience is senior
postgraduate students and researchers, and sessions will
be conducted in Arabic and
English.
3. Developing postgraduate skills
This workshop provides
basic training in a variety of
skills needed to pursue research and publish results. It
includes undertaking litera-
ture research, using endnotes,
writing proposals and theses,
using of statistical packages,
critical thinking, as well as
communication and presentation skills. The target audience
is postgraduate students and
faculty, and sessions will be
conducted in Arabic and English.
4. First aid procedures in
laboratories and work locations
This workshop aims at
raising awareness among
those who are working in labs
and in the work field of safety procedures for protection
against fire and the dangers of
chemical dangers. It also instructs participants on how to
use first aid. The target audience is postgraduate students
and technicians and it will be
presented in English.
F
unded by His Majesty’s Royal
Grant, strategic research at SQU
is seen as a fundamental cornerstone for activating research of all
types, technical and human, as it has
offered researchers wider horizons for
carrying out their projects with financial support, using modern equipment
and above all with the trust of His
Majesty. The wisdom and foresight of
His Majesty have laid down the University’s scholarly and research foundations.
In an interview with Saif bin Said
al Sinani, Director of Research and Innovation Affairs at SQU, it was stated
that the year 2000 could be considered
as a turning point in SQU’s life as it
witnessed a visit by His Majesty which
inaugurated a new phase in the University’s development, one that will adopt
global changes in higher education, and
put SQU on the same footing as advanced universities in the world. During his visit, His Majesty emphasised
the importance of in-depth research
in achieving these goals and launched
his annual Royal Grant in support of
selected strategic research produced
by SQU faculty. Since 2001, 43 research projects have been financed in
the fields of environmental sciences,
technology, petroleum, health, engineering and human sciences. These
projects dealt with important topics
and reflected international standards of
procedure.
Selection mechanism
Selecting strategic research projects
follows the same mechanism used in selecting research funded by the University. Researchers from various colleges
(Medicine, Engineering, Agriculture
and Environment, Education, Sciences
and Arts) submit proposals which will
support the Sultanate’s development
process. These proposals are sent to inhouse as well as international referees
at prestigious universities and they are
further evaluated by relevant institutions, ministries and corporations. All
reports are collected and presented to a
committee of specialists which selects
the best proposals and recommends
funding.
Al Sinani explained that submitting
proposals is open to the general public
on condition that the main researcher
is a faculty member at SQU. Associate
researchers can be drawn from the local community, represented by the private and government sectors or from
prestigious international universities
and research centres, depending on the
project type. For example a proposal
that deals with medical field can include specialists from the Ministry of
Health and so on.
Al Sinani pointed out that funded
projects have achieved tangible and
positive results in accordance with their
goals and objectives, and that their results will be distributed to all parties
concerned. The ceiling for the funding
of research is limited neither by the
number of projects nor by the funds
available. Each project is evaluated
on its own merits and allotted an appropriate budget in order to enable the
researchers to achieve their goals. The
number of research projects submitted
annually is not limited as it depends on
their quality, their strategic importance
to the development of the Sultanate,
and their cost within the annual budget
allotted for a particular year. Thus, as
many as ten, or less projects can be accepted in one year.
Al Sinani added that the following
five strategic research projects submitted by SQU faculty have been approved this year as they are developmentally relevant:
1. The History of Omani-East African Relations between 1624-1963: A
critical and Analytical Study (Faculty
of Arts and Social Sciences)
2. Establishment of a National
Facility in Stem Cell Translational
Research for Novel Cellular-based
Therapies and Tissue Repair (College
of Medicine)
3. Nosocomial Transmission of
Multi-drug Resistant Acinetobacter
Strains — the Usefulness of Patient
Screening, Assessment of Environmental, Aerial Bacterial Contamination
and Various Genotypic and Phenotypic
Typing Methodologies (College of
Medicine)
4. The Feasibility of Managed Aquifer Recharge Using Excess Treated
Wastewater in Oman (College of Agriculture and Marine Sciences)
5. Developing Microfluidic Systems for Routine Analysis of Pharmaceutical Samples (College of Science)
Ongoing efforts
Al Sinani concluded by saying that
SQU’s efforts at developing research
will continue throughout the coming
years in order to improve the quality
of research and encourage academics
to produce their best work by providing them with all kinds of facilities
conducive for research excellence and
innovation.