Aflatoxins in Mozambique: Etiology, Epidemiology and Control

Edgar Cambaza, Shigenobu Koseki, Shuso Kawamura
2018 Agriculture  
Mozambique is endemic to aflatoxigenic Aspergillus but the country has to heavily rely on foreign research to deduce what is happening locally. There is some information produced by local scholars and institutions but it needs to be "tied" together. This review briefly synthetizes the country's major findings in relation to the toxin's etiology, epidemiology, detection and control, discussing and meta-analyzing them as far as they allow. The causes and commodities affected are the same as in
more » ... t tropical countries; the toxin is widespread and the level of exposure is high. Regarding the control, it is still marginal but some institutions have driven efforts in this direction. Learning from other countries is still the best approach to take, as the solutions are probably the same for most places. Part of this review is based on a meta-analysis of Mozambican reports published from 1985 to 2017 (Table 1) . The time gaps were always over 5 years and the samples varied considerably. There are differences in the way the data was collected and analyzed. For instance, not all registered the prevalence of aflatoxins, most did not distinguish the type of aflatoxins detected, and some presented the results in average and others median. Yet, the results allow some comparisons.
doi:10.3390/agriculture8070087 fatcat:jvgsuesv3fez7oveu222fa3374