WAYS TO DETECT ANTIBIOTIC RESIDUES IN RAW MILK

Consumption of milk contaminated with antibiotics poses a serious threat to human health. Many types of antibiotics tend to accumulate in various human tissues causing their distraction over time. Consumption of products of animal origin containing residual amounts of antibiotics increases the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans. That's why it is extremely important to detect antibiotic residues at the first stage of the food chain. Different methods are used in dairy industry to detect antibiotics and drug residues in milk. There are two main groups of methods - screening and confirmatory tests. Screening tests are used in everyday practice to control the quality of raw milk when the milk truck arrives. Among these tests we can name classical lateral flow tests (LF; Immunochromatographic analysis) and microbial inhibition tests. Lateral Flow tests are most commonly used because they are extremely fast (test time 6-15 minutes), accurate, require no trained staff and minimal technical support, results can be read visually without a special device. Confirmatory tests usually cost a fortune, require special customised equipment, trained staff and of course take time. They include High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and Capillary electrophoresis (CE).