Prevalence of contamination of aflatoxin M1 in milk: a retrospective analysis of studies conducted in Pakistan

Abstract

Aflatoxins, produced by multiple fungal species, are present in several kinds of food items and animal feed. Several studies conducted in Pakistan have reported the presence of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in milk. Hence, owing to the public health concern and absence of general statistics regarding the prevalence of AFM1 contamination, current study was aimed to investigate the prevalence of AFM1 in milk in Pakistan. For this study, various databases were searched from 2007 to 2020. A random effect model was applied for analytical purpose and heterogeneity of selected studies was investigated with an I2 index. Comprehensive meta-analysis (version 3) was used for analysis of data. According to the results, prevalence of AFM1 in milk was 84.4% (95% CI 75.0–90.7%). Regarding the heterogeneity based on meta-regression, it has been observed that there was a significant difference between the effect of year of study and sample size with prevalence of AFM1 in animal milk. These results suggest that AFM1 contamination in animal milk is high in Pakistan. Hence, continuous monitoring of AFM1 in animal milk requires utmost attention from the respective food and drug regulatory authorities of Pakistan so that the strict actions and preventive measures should be taken to prevent the prevalence of exposure of AFM1 in animal milk.