Growing worldwide concern about human resistance to antibiotics is driving an increase in drug residue testing in honey products, according to Randox Food Diagnostics.
Antibiotics are used in apiculture to treat bacterial diseases, such as foulbrood. Antimicrobial drugs are effective against these diseases; though due to potential risks to human health the use of antimicrobials in apiculture is strictly regulated or banned in some countries.
Global import alerts over antibiotic use in honey have led to an increase in drug residue surveillance and a demand for rapid, reliable and sensitive screening methods for antibiotic residues. As a result, Randox Food Diagnostics’ range of honey antimicrobial screening kits in both ELISA format and Biochip Array Technology (BAT) have seen growing demand from honey producers globally.
Governments around the world are becoming increasingly concerned about human antibiotic resistance developed through veterinary drug residues entering the food chain. Combating the problem is not going to be a quick or cheap fix. Earlier this month US President Barack Obama pledged $1.2bn to combat the threat of antibiotic resistance, with a large proportion going to the Food and Drug Administration to help combat the overuse of antibiotics in food production.
Randox Food Diagnostics presents the world’s only multi-analyte quantitative antibiotic screening analyser, the Evidence Investigator. The use of the Evidence Investigator utilises Randox patented Biochip Array Technology, allowing simultaneous detection of multiple antibiotics from a single honey sample.
Randox aims to reduce the number of samples honey producers need to send to confirmation laboratories by isolating samples that are below the tolerance cut off level. Their complete system package for antibiotic quantitative screening ensures reliable results that are strongly comparable to LC/MS MS, along with consolidated testing, significant savings, improved efficiency and quicker results turnaround.
For producers with lower honey volumes, Randox ELISA screening kits offer simple, accurate and highly cost-effective results, allowing for the screening of drug residues in various matrices, and showing favourable comparison with confirmatory methods.
