**7. Current status of aflatoxins in Africa.**

fyet al., [46]. These technologies are expensive and most African farmers may not be able to acquire them. However some of the post-harvest strategies that could be used in Africa in‐ clude the following: Rapid and proper drying of maize to moisture level of 13% or below. This will halt growth of fungi in the product. Products stored with high moisture increase growth of fungi in the stored product and this leads to increase of aflatoxin in the product [27]. Post-harvest insect control can prevent damage to maize. Clays such as Novasil could bind to aflatoxin in animal feeds [36]. Other control strategies have been reviewed by Ker‐ stin and Mutegi, [40]. Quality management systems for Hazard Analysis Critical Control

It is important to consider economic impacts of food contaminants such as aflatoxins as it imposes enormous socio-economic cost to human society. Wu and Khlangwiset [80] ana‐ lyzed two potential aflatoxin control strategies in Africa, 1) pre-harvest control using atoxi‐ genic strains of Aspergillusflavus competitively to exclude toxigenic strains in maize and 2) post-harvest intervention in a package to reduce aflatoxin contamination in peanuts in Guinea. Health benefit was gained from each intervention in terms of fewer aflatoxin-in‐ duced cases compared to cost of implementing the intervention. Both interventions were found to be cost-effective if applied widely in Africa. The monetary value of life saved and quality of life gained by reducing aflatoxin induced hepatocellular carcinoma exceeds the cost of either bio-control or post-harvest intervention package. The estimated cost-effective‐ ness ratio (CER: gross domestic product multiplied by disability adjusted life years saved per unit cost) for bio-control in Nigerian maize ranged from 5.10 - 24.8 while estimated CER for post-harvest intervention package in Guinea peanut ranged from 0.21 - 2.08. Any inter‐ vention with a CER >1 is considered by world Health Organization (WHO) to be very cost effective while intervention with CER > 0.33 is considered cost effective [80]. The way for‐

**1.** Each African country should identify local non-toxigenic strains and develop a package for legal registration for use in aflatoxin management and develop capacity for manu‐

**2.** There should be extensive awareness programmes in each country since some African countries exchange agricultural products across the border without strict control. Awareness of aflatoxin problem and management strategies should be extended to

**3.** Efficacy of non-toxigenic strains should be demonstrated through farmers Schools, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), extension staff, outreach programmes and Women groups involved in agricultural services. This will enhance adoption by farm‐

**4.** Government should provide incentives to resource poor farmers to access non-toxigenic

Medical Practitioners, religious leaders, herbalists and Private Sector.

Point (HACCP) should be employed for management of mycotoxins [65).

**6. Cost effectiveness of aflatoxin reduction strategy in Africa**

ward with toxigenic strains of Aspergillusflavusis therefore:-

strains that should be available in small packages.

facturing the strains.

46 Aflatoxins - Recent Advances and Future Prospects

ers.

In 2010 the level of aflatoxin in maize stored by farmers in Kenya were found to be 1776ppb while in the markets the concentration was 1632ppb [49]. These levels are likely to cause acute toxicity if contaminated products are consumed. In 2011, 40% of samples that were taken from farmers' fields in Eastern and Western Kenya were found with aflatoxin level of >10ppb. In Mali between 2009- 2010 aflatoxin level in peanuts were found to be >10ppb in 35-61 % of samples from farmers' fields and 39-91% samples from farmers stores [73]. Pea‐ nut paste in Mali had high aflatoxin level of >300ppb. Apparently the levels of aflatoxins in West Africa have been quite high. Maize in Benin had 4,000ng/g, In Ghana aflatoxin level in peanuts was reported to be 216ng/g while peanut paste had 3,278ng/g and peanut sauce 943ng/g, cashew paste, 366ng/g. In Nigeria Peanut oil had 500ng/g while yam flour had 7600ng/g [7]. This an indication that Ghana urgently needs intervention strategies to miti‐ gate the aflatoxin challenges. In Kenya,aflatoxin M1 has been reported in milk [37]. There have been re-occurrence of outbreaks of acute aflatoxicoses in Eastern province that causes various deaths [57, 58].The S strain morphotype of A.flavus was identified as the cause of aflatoxicoses in 2004 and 2006 [57]. Apparently the high incidence of S strain of A. flavush‐ ighly correlated with acute aflatoxicosis in Eastern region of Kenya [56, 58, 57]. A simple test for Aflatoxin in maize kernels is the Bright greenish-yellow fluorescence (BGYF) or the black light test. Kernels are viewed under UV lamp (365 nm) for characteristic BGYF. This indi‐ cates a possible presence of aflatoxin producing fungi or mycotoxin itself [84] Laboratories in Africa should be able to perform these tests during surveillance survey.
