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In Seychelles, nuclear science helps safeguard consumers
A scientist from the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory conducting milk testing. (Photo: S. Labrosse/Seychelles Public Health Laboratory)
The 100 000 inhabitants of Seychelles, a 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean, can now better trust the food products they buy thanks to the use of nuclear-based techniques. Initiated in 2016, a four-year technical cooperation project led by the IAEA, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has helped increase food safety control capacities in Seychelles. As a result, the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory can now detect aflatoxin M1, a carcinogenic substance, in milk and dairy imports. At the same time, the government has strengthened the national legal framework to better protect consumer health with respect to these contaminants. Many small island developing states, referred to as SIDS, are unsuited to agriculture because of their small size, topography and weather. As a result, they rely on food imports. To keep consumers safe and trusting, it is crucial to monitor and control contaminants such as mycotoxins, biotoxins and toxic metals in imported food products, as well as the residues of veterinary medicines and pesticides used in food production.
32 | IAEA Bulletin, November 2020
“Thanks to IAEA and FAO support, we are now capable of conducting analysis for traces of a range of residues and contaminants in food, which means we have the ability to better protect consumers from potential hazards in imported products,” said Leon Biscornet, Chief Laboratory Technologist at the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory. He added that the ability to certify the safety of food products destined for export also helps to improve access to and preserve food export markets, as well as boosting agricultural exports.
Detection of aflatoxin in milk and dairy products Over 90 per cent of the milk and dairy products consumed in Seychelles are imported. After a year of collaboration with the IAEA and the FAO, the laboratory was able to detect unacceptable levels of aflatoxin M1 in 12 types of imported milk products. The suspected products were immediately recalled, pending confirmation of the diagnosis from an international reference laboratory, which confirmed that more than 90 per cent of the suspected samples indeed contained aflatoxin M1. This
demonstrated the reliability of the testing capabilities established at the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory. Produced by fungi, aflatoxins are a major public health and trade concern worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), they increase the risk of cancer, especially liver cancer; they can also cause acute sickness and toxicity in humans. Therefore, according to James Sasanya, Food Safety Specialist at the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, their presence in food products should be regulated and monitored by reliable laboratories. Before the contaminated milk incident in Seychelles, the national food regulations on contaminants and toxins in food or feed did not include any limit of aflatoxin M1 concentration in milk and milk products. This has now changed with the 2019 amendment of the national Food Safety Act. “Under the new provisions, there is now a clear legal basis for removing contaminated milk products from the market, both wholesale and retail, with immediate effect,” said Jude Gédéon, Public Health Commissioner in Seychelles.
