Le Duy Binh, Viet Nam
1. Introduction
Since September 2001 consignments of Vietnamese shrimp contaminated with chloramphenicol were detected in the European Union (EU) applying methods with limits of detection (LOD) which were much lower than the capability of Vietnamese laboratories at that time (1.5ppb). The incidents caused a big economic loss due to a drop of exports to the EU-market. The following figure illustrates change in export before and after the incident:
2. Reasons:
- The regulatory system was not good enough to control drug residue hazard efficiently. Aquaculture input (feeds, drugs...) and other factors (labeling...) were not strictly controlled
- Analytical facilities, laboratory expertise did not match such detection limits required by some importing countries (CAP: LOD 1.5ppb; furazolidone: HPLC: 1.5 ppb)
- Farmers, processors did not fully evaluate economic loss due to the abuse of aquaculture drugs, especially unauthorized ones.
- Farmers were not consulted well on aquaculture techniques, environment, health management.
3. Measures applied in Viet Nam to prevent forbidden antibiotic in aquaculture products
It is noted that 90-95% of shrimp produced in Viet Nam is used for exports, so Viet Nam has to do its best to comply with the emerging requirements of international market:
3.1. Improved legal system regulating the fish veterinary activities; new regulatory documents issued:
- Governmental Instruction No 07/CT-TTg dated 25/2/2002 on the prohibition of some chemical, drugs including 10 substances banned by EU;
- Ministerial Regulation on the control of harmful substances on aquaculture products to clarify duty and responsibility of concerning bodies and penalties in case of violation the regulation;
- Governmental Decree No 70/2003/ND-CP dated 17/06/2003 on the fining activities violating fishery regulations;
- Governmental Decree No 86/2001/ND-CP dated 16/11/2001 on conditional professions in fishery sector (including intensive shrimp farming and distributors of feeds, chemical and aquaculture drugs).
3.2. Restructuring the competent authority: the National Fisheries Inspection and Quality Assurance Center (NAFIQACEN) was changed to the National Fisheries Quality Assurance and Veterinary Directorate (NAFIQAVED), an organisation with more power and responsibility including fish veterinary management since 5/8/2003.
3.3. Upgrade of the laboratory equipment and staff expertise: the Government funded 1.7 million USD for NAFIQAVED laboratories to install new analytical equipments for screening and confirmatory test of antibiotic including GC/MS and LC/MS/MS. NAFIQAVED staff was sent abroad to learn new analytical methods for residues of antibiotics with these new instruments, especially for chloramphenicol and nitrofurans.
3.4. Reinforce measures to prevent and control antibiotic abuse in aquaculture: as the national authority, NAFIQAVED has done a lot of reinforce activities:
- Reinforce inspection on input materials (feeds, drugs, chemical...) used in aquaculture:
o Imported products must be checked for forbidden drugs before custom clearance;
o New requirements on labelling: feeds, drugs, chemicals must be declared not using 10 kinds of drugs, chemical banned by the Ministry Of Fisheries
o Frequent inspection on wholesalers, retailers to check for violation concerning the use and distribution of aquaculture drugs, especially antibiotics.
o Random check of feeds, chemical, drugs distributed on the market for forbidden antibiotics
- Training for local authorities, farmers on techniques, environmental management to reduce the use of unnecessary chemical, drugs; propagating the public on governmental regulation on forbidden drugs.
- Encouragement of GAP (good aquaculture practice) in fish, shrimp farming.
- Encouragement of group, cooperative among small farmers for mutual aids, consultants and traceability purpose.
- The processors had to modify their HACCP plan concerning aquaculture products and a CCP on antibiotic abuse must be considered at receiving step. Some have their own ELISA kits to test for chloramphenicol in raw material.
- Every lot of aquaculture products exported to EU, Canada, Switzerland... must be checked for antibiotics (chloramphenicol, nitrofurans) before issuing health certificate.
4. Results
With the above mention activities, numbers of Viet Nam fishery products exported to international market contaminated with CAP, Nitrofurans reduce considerably. For example none of aquaculture products was detected with CAP, Nitrofurans in EU in recent months.
5. Conclusion:
- Antibiotic residues of antibiotic have caused big economic loss to Vietnam fishery sector
- Vietnam has to make a lot of change and modification in legislation, activities, including restructuring the organization of the competent authority to improve control and minimize the risk of contamination of forbidden drugs in aquaculture products
- The characteristic of shrimp farming in Vietnam is small scale, these efforts mentioned above are just for minimizing the risk, not eliminating it
- The zero tolerance concept is a big challenge for developing country like Viet Nam due to the development of new equipment and analyzing method, even if for a meaningless concentration of aquaculture drugs.
