Date:03/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/03/stories/2009070354720500.htm

Kerala - Kochi

Lab to check use of banned drug

Special Correspondent

Lab’s certification will be mandatory to export shrimps

Lab will test mainly for presence of nitrofuran
The antibiotic is used for viral infection in farms

KOCHI: A lab for screening aquaculture products for banned antibiotics will be set up in Kerala, most probably at Kochi, by the Marine Products Exports Promotion Authority (MPEDA) soon.

Once the ELISA lab (ELISA stands for enzyme-linked immunoassay) is set up, shrimps, scampi and other products raised in the ‘chemmeen kettu’ (prawn farms) and other aquaculture farms will have to be certified by the lab before they can be exported. The test will be mainly for the presence of the banned antibiotic ‘nitrofuran’ which, until recently, had been used extensively by farmers to battle the deadly virus infection that devastated aqua farms in the State. Nitrofuran is harmful to humans and hence its use is banned in most countries.

Safety standards

Consumers and authorities in Europe and Japan, where most of Indian cultured shrimps are exported to, are concerned about the presence of the harmful antibiotics in them. However, officials say that the use of ‘nitrofuran’ has drastically come down because of the efforts to meet the strict hygienic and food safety standards of the importing countries. Still, to check the abuse of banned insecticides, the MPEDA is setting up a series of ELISA labs in the aquaculture-practising States. Already, six such labs have been set up in Andhra Pradesh which has the largest number of aquaculture farms in the country. Certification of prawns and other items produced in the farms has already been made mandatory in Andhra Pradesh. In the second phase, nine labs will be set up soon in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. From August, certification will be made compulsory in these States also. In the third phase, mostly by the year-end, a lab will be set up at Kochi. Farmers will have to get the certificate before the harvest. Without certification, the products cannot be exported.

More famous use

The ELISA test, which is more familiarly used for HIV screening, has found applications in the food industry in detecting potential allergens in foods such as fish, milk, eggs and peanuts.