1 Antimicrobial residues and compositional quality of informally marketed raw cow milk, Lamu West Sub-County, Kenya, 2015 George Kiage Ondieki 1,2 , Jackson Nyarongi Ombui 3 , Mark Obonyo 1 , Zeinab Gura 1 , Jane Githuku 1,& , Austine Bitek Orinde 4 , Joseph Kangangi Gikunju 2 1 Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program Kenya (K-FELTP), Kenya, 2 Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases (ITROMID), Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Kenya, 3 Department of Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 4 Zoonotic Disease Unit, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock Development and Fisheries, Kenya & Corresponding author: Jane Githuku, Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program Kenya (K-FELTP), Kenya Cite this: The Pan African Medical Journal. 2017;28 (Supp 1):5. DOI: 10.11604/pamj.supp.2017.28.1.9279 Received: 06/03/2016 - Accepted: 19/01/2017 - Published: 03/11/2017 Key words: Antimicrobial residues, composition, adulteration, milk, Kenya © George Kiage Ondieki et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Com- mons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Corresponding author: George Kiage Ondieki, Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program Kenya (K-FELTP), Kenya (drondiekigk@gmail.com) Research Supplement article This article is published as part of the supplement “Kenya Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program; Strengthening Public Health Systems through Experiential Training and Operational Research” sponsored by Africa Field Epidemiology Network Guest editors: Zeinab Gura, Jane Githuku, Sara Lowther Available online at: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/series/28/1/5/full Abstract Introduction: unadulterated milk, free of antimicrobial residues is important for industrial processing and consumers’ health. Antimicrobial residues in foods of animal origin can cause adverse public health efects like drug resistance and hypersensitivity. Milk produced in Lamu West sub-county is sold raw directly to consumers. We estimated the compositional quality and prevalence of antimicrobial residues in informally marketed raw cow milk in Lamu West Sub-County, Kenya. Methods: we randomly recruited 152 vendors and 207 farmers from four randomly selected urban centers in a cross-sectional study and interviewed them using a pretested standardized questionnaire. A100-ml raw milk sample was aseptically collected from each vendor and farm and tested for antimicrobial residues using Charm Blue Yellow II kit following the European Union Maximum Residue Limits (EU-MRLs) while an Ekomilk® Analyzer was used to measure compositional quality where samples with either solid not fat (SNF) < 8.5 or added water ≥ 0.01% or both were considered adulterated. We analyzed data using univariate analysis and unconditional logistic regression to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confdence intervals (CI). Results: thirty-two of the 207 (15.5%) samples from farmers and 28 (18.4%) of the 152 samples from vendors tested positive for antimicrobial residues. Thirty-six (17.4 %) samples from farmers and 38 (25.0%) from vendors were found to be adulterated with water. Farmers’ awareness of the danger of consuming milk with antimicrobial residues and farmers having training on good milking practices were protective against selling milk with antimicrobial residues (adjusted OR and 95% CI 0.20, 0.07-0.55 and 0.33, 0.11-0.99, respectively). Conclusion: the antimicrobial residues above EU MRLs and adulteration of raw marketed cow milk observed in this study provide evidence for routine testing of marketed milk and educating farmers to observe antimicrobial withdrawal period. The Pan African Medical Journal. 2017;28 (Supp 1):5 | George Kiage Ondieki et al.