A state-of-the-art quality control laboratory to check traces of antibiotics in shrimps and other marine products was inaugurated here on Monday.
The laboratory would address concerns of the USA, Japan and the European Union (EU) for stringent quality controls over exports of seafood from India.
Set up by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), the fifth such laboratory in the country is fully equipped to check presence of chloramphenicol and nitrofuran, the two banned antibiotics, for which American and Japanese importers have particularly insisted for analysis.
Accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration and approved by the Export Inspection Council of India under the laboratory Approval Scheme (lAS), the laboratory has started analysing Chloramphenicol and Nitrofuran metabolites in samples drawn under the National Residue Control Programme (NRCP) and those drawn from the market, said an official.
In case samples are screened positive in ElISA labs at Bhubaneswar, Baleswar and Sonarpur, they would be checked and confirmed at the quality control laboratory, which has also developed methodology for another antibiotic, retracycline; and its validation is under process.
“By setting up its laboratory in Odisha, the MPEDA has met a longstanding demand from the seafood exporters. Our seafood exporters have set global benchmarks. We must follow this benchmark which is going to lead the seafood sector in the next few decades,” said State Agriculture Production Commissioner Gagan Kumar Dhal.
MPEDA Chairman A Jayathilak said there has been a sustained demand from the industry to have a laboratory with the most modern equipment to identify the antibiotic residues up to the lowest and most microscopic levels.
“We have had some instances of presence of antibiotics in the past, especially the most commonly detected Chloramphenicol and Nitrofuran metabolites; and it has led to immediate response. We pass on the information immediately down the stream to the exporters and the farmers, but you need to have the best equipments and manpower in place for it,” he said.
Alongside, the lab is developing facilities for validation of sulphonamides. After completion of testing facilities for tetracycline and sulphonamides, the lab will be fully ready for analysis of commercial samples meant for export to the EU also. Currently, these substances are being tested at other MPEDA QC laboratories.
The Bhubaneswar laboratory can analyse samples submitted by farmers, processors and exporters as part of their quality assurance for residue-free raw material for processing and exporting.