An estimated 500 million of the poorest people in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia are exposed to mycotoxins at levels that substantially increase mortality and morbidity. The impact of aflatoxin on child health is well established. However, changing environmental conditions and diet pattern may lead to increased impacts of mycotoxins on child health and nutrition.

This section contains publications related to the impact of mycotoxins on health and nutrition in developing countries.

Mycotoxin Control in Low- And Middle-Income Countries

WHO - 2015

This book provides an evaluation of measures to reduce exposure to highly toxic and carcinogenic contaminants in staple diets in Africa as well as parts of Asia and Latin America. Many of the poorest people in these regions are exposed to the pervasive natural toxins, aflatoxins and fumonisins, on a daily basis by eating their staple diet of groundnuts, maize, and other cereals. Exposure to mycotoxins at these high levels substantially increases mortality and morbidity. Aflatoxins are a cause of human liver cancer, and fatalities from acute aflatoxin poisoning outbreaks occur in Africa and Asia. 

The global spread of crop pests and pathogens

2014

The aim os this paper is to describe the patterns and trends in the spread of crop pests and pathogens around the world, and determine the socioeconomic, environmental and biological factors underlying the rate and degree of redistribution of crop-destroying organisms.

Current country- and state-level distributions of 1901 pests and pathogens and historical observation dates for 424 species were compared with potential distributions based upon distributions of host crops. The degree of ‘saturation’, i.e. the fraction of the potential distribution occupied, was related to pest type, host range, crop production, climate and socioeconomic variables using linear models.

Mycotoxins Factsheet - fourth edition

EC - 2011

This Technical Report of the European Union Reference Laboratory (EU-RLRL) for Mycotoxins aims to deliver useful scientific information to all laboratories dealing with mycotoxins determination in food, but also in other matrices. Chemical data of the mycotoxins of concern, European legislation related to mycotoxins in food and feed and web-links to toxicological information on these compounds are reported.

Workgroup Report: Public Health Strategies for Reducing Aflatoxin Exposure in Developing Countries

EHP - 2006

In response to consecutive outbreaks of acute aflatoxicosis in Kenya in 2004 – 2005 (responsible for over 150 deaths) a workshop of international experts and health officials was convened in Geneva, July 2005, by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The goals of the workshop were to identify public health strategies for the reduction of morbidity and mortality associated with the consumption of aflatoxin-contaminated food in the developing world and to outline an integrated plan that more effectively combines public health and agricultural approaches to the control of aflatoxins. 

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