Antibiotics are widely used in the poultry industry to enhance the health and productivity of flocks which may have adverse effects on consumer’s health. It is necessary to screen food products from animal origin for antimicrobial residues to safeguard the consumer’s health. The present study was aimed to detect florfenicol (FF) residues in meat and egg samples of layer birds. For this purpose 150 meat and eggs samples were collected in equal ratio. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to determine residual concentration of FF in meat and egg samples at wavelength of 223 nm. Ethyl acetate and phosphate buffer saline solution were used for extraction of FF from the samples. The mobile phase contained acetonitrile and water (27:73 v/v). Mean residual concentrations of FF as 61.56±13.19 and 281.08±57.46 µg/kg in meat and egg samples was detected. This study also showed that 80% (60) meat and 72% (54) egg samples were FF residue positive, out of these 86.7% (52) meat and 55.6% (30) egg samples were found to have residual concentrations above maximum residual limits. This contaminated meat may cause public health issues. There is a need to develop legislation about residual concentration of drugs in animal food products in Pakistan as well as to inform formers about the detrimental effects of drug residues on human health.

To Cite This Article: Fahim A, Aslam B, Mohsin M, Raza A, Faisal MN and Hussain A, 2018. Estimation of florfenicol residues in layer meat and egg samples using high performance liquid chromatography. Pak Vet J, 38(3): 329-332. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2018.052