Journal of Advances in Microbiology

Aflatoxin M₁ is a biomarker for the detection of breast milk contamination and also a risk factor for early infant’s exposure to the toxin. Exposure assessment of 50 internally displaced infants to aflatoxin M₁ through breast-milk feeding was carried out between (June 2016 to October 2016), High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to evaluate the level of AFM₁ in mother’s breast milk samples and the infant’s urine samples respectively.  Results obtained from the study showed that 96% of the breast milk samples have maximum concentration of 0.0879µg/L with mean value of 0.0582µg/L while, the minimum and maximum excretion concentration of AFM₁ in urine sample of infants was 0.0400µg/L and 0.0651µg/L respectively with mean value of 0.05005µg/L at 88%.

The study indicates that the occurrence of AFM₁ in breast milk samples of mothers with the types of food they consumed within 24- 48hrs prior to sample collection that predispose the infant’s exposure to AFM₁ showed 40% of the women consumed rice and 32% consumed local food (brabisko/biski) and 24% consumed corn meal with statistically significant with P value less than 0.05. From the study the 96% of the infants were exposed to the toxin while 18% of the infants were undetectable, the concentration of AFM₁ in all the breast milk samples were found to be higher than the acceptable tolerance level of 0.025µg/L and 0.05µg/L for infants milk by the European Communities and Codex Alimentarius respectively. This possess a concern that internally displaced infants that were on admission in the selected facility where exposed to AFM_1.