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There are hundreds of poultry farms in the village of Al-Ayat on the outskirts of Giza Governorate to the south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Mahmoud Eid is a farm worker who is preparing to add the antibiotic, Tylosin to the watering trough of the chicken hatchery in one of these farms. Eid said, “We use a lot of antibiotics in the process of raising poultry to protect them from disease and cold weather because of the spread of viruses and infectious illnesses that can destroy an entire stock.”
Mr Eid uses these antibiotics immediately prior to selling his chickens to keep them “alert” as he put it. He told us that none of the inspectors of the Ministry of Agriculture had visited him during the twelve years he had spent on the farm. He is not aware that Tylosin belongs to a group of sixteen antibiotics banned from use in poultry in 2016 by the General Organization for Veterinary Services. The antibiotics are dangerous to human health due to the traces that remain in the chicken meat.
According to data from the Poultry Resources Division of the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, there is no statistical data covering all poultry farms as a large number of these are not licensed. Their number is estimated to be between forty-seven and fifty thousand chicken farms, and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture is unable to provide oversight or to inspect them all. The Ministry is also incapable of enforcing that workers follow Egyptian specifications in Regulation No. 2377/ 90 issued in 2010. This regulation sets the acceptable level of traces of veterinary drugs in foods of animal origins.
On a research tour in the governorates of Giza, Dakahlia and Al-Sharqia, we documented the use of antibiotics by poultry farmers in violation of biosafety regulations. The biosafety period is the time needed for antibiotic traces to leave the body of chickens. It is also known as the “withdrawal period,” which could be anything between seven to twenty-eight days after using the antibiotics.
We conducted two laboratory analyses that showed traces of Ceftriaxone and Gentamicin. Both of these antibiotics have been banned in Egypt since 2018.
These are chemical compounds produced in whole or in part from germs, usually from fungi and bacteria. In their low concentration, they have a special ability to kill or stop the growth of many germs. They are, however, chemical toxins whose presence in foods is alarming.
We documented the use of banned antibiotics in two farms in Al-Sharqia Governorate, 111 kilometers east of Cairo, where the age of chickens ranged between 24 and 42 days. These antibiotics are: “Erythromycin, Organocide, Oxytetracycline, Samox, Eucicox, Telovar, Linco-Spectin, Cemoved and Cefotaxime. These were either injected or placed into the feeding troughs. In a letter sent to the Veterinary Medicine Directorate in Al-Sharqia in April 2016, the General Organization for Veterinary Services listed 16 types of banned antibiotics, including the previously mentioned ones.
According to Mohammad Abdel-Fattah, a veterinarian and farm supervisor, some poultry farmers in Egypt use antibiotics because chicks get infected in the coop or hatchery itself, or through airborne viruses. He explained that the correct way to calculate the concentration of the antibiotic to be injected into a chicken depends on its weight, and not on the amount of water it drinks, as most poultry farmers do.
الدكتور محمد عبد الفتاح
Antibiotics banned in Egypt
FlorfenicolBanned on 2 May 2013
gentamicinBanned on 2 May 2013Bottles over 50ml or 10% for export only
tylosin & colistinBanned on 2 May 2013
rifamyeinBanned on 28 November 2011
enrofloxaeinBanned on 28 November 2011
ciprofloxaeinBanned on 7 March 2013
oxytetra cyclineBanned on 28 February 2013
spiramyeinBanned on 13 June 2013Only 100ml are allowed in pigs in wsp form, allowed to inject non-dairy cows and pigs, used for cats and dogs as tablets, used as oral solution for pigs only.
Banned on 26 September 2013In addition to the warning not to use veterinary products containing this substance in the form of injections for newly born domestic animals, companies are granted 6 months from the date of the committee to implement this decision due to the absence of similar products in the veterinary field.
benzyl alcohol
Banned on 7 March 2013
danofloxaein w.s.pBanned on 3 September 2015
colistin& flumequineBanned on 3 July 2015
biecozamycinBanned on 19 February 2015
kitasamycin
Banned on 29 January 2015
norfloxacin
Banned on 13 June 2013
spectinomycin &cindamyein
Banned on 26 September 2013
ceftazidime
The age of chickens in days
Treatment drugs
From 1 to 4 days old
Pan-Fluor / Ciprofloxacin: “2 cm / liter of water for 12 hours + vitamin A.” D3e “1 cm / liter of water for 12 hours
From 5 to 8 days
Mineral salts 1 cm / liter of water for 12 hours + vitamin “B-K – choline” 1 cm / liter of water for 12 hours
From 9 to 12 days
Antidote or antitoxin + “Ranex” tonic for the liver and kidneys for 12 hours
Day 13
Diclavat “1 cm / liter of water for 24 hours.”
From 14 to 17 days
Ampicillin: 1 gram / liter of water for 12 hours + vinegar 1 cm / liter of water for 12 hours
From 18 to 20 days
Immunity booster and minerals
From 21 to 30 days
Immunity booster and minerals
From 31 to 35 days
Vitamins and minerals + antitoxins in water
The second investigative trip was in the Governorate of Dakahlia. There, poultry farms are erected in close proximity to residential clusters, in violation of Regulation No. (434) of 2017, issued by the Minister of Housing. This regulation sets the general requirements that farms should be a kilometer away from urban clusters.
Famers on three farms we visited used banned antibiotics without even factoring in veterinary guidance that calls for compliance with biosafety period “allowing the antibiotic to leave the animals system”.