International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | November 2018 | Vol 5 | Issue 11 Page 4670 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Moonajilin MS et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2018 Nov;5(11):4670-4675 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article A study on milk adulteration of Savar Upazila in Bangladesh M. Sabrina Moonajilin 1 *, M. Saiful Islam 1 , Ratna Paul 2 INTRODUCTION Milk is one of the most precious natural food and has been a basic component of human diet. 1 Due to increasing demand of milk; milk adulteration is a common phenomenon especially in certain areas of the world. 2 The adulteration is an act internationally debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by admixture or substitution of inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredients. 3 Milk adulteration leads to economic losses, deterioration of the quality of end products and a risk to consumers safety. 4 Therefore, it is important task for the milk authorities to confirm the quality of raw milk supplied in dairy shops and markets. Melamine is being examples of illegally added substances to the milk for contribute the nitrogen and thus increase milk SNF. Milk is an indispensable food for human being from infancy to old age. It contains all the nutrients necessary for health in almost ideal proportion. So, it is considered as nature’s single most complete food. Milk is the essential food needed by growing children. It contains both the basic and additional requirements ABSTRACT Background: Milk adulteration has become a serious concern. Some of the adulterants in milk have serious adverse health effects. This study was designed to assess consumer awareness about milk and determine formalin and melamine in milk. Methods: The study involved a laboratory-based investigation and a survey was conducted to assess consumer awareness about milk adulteration from January 2018 to June 2018. Total 10 samples were collected from local market purposively. 2 adulteration tests were conducted to detect formalin and melamine in samples. 10 brands of milk from 8 companies were collected from different markets of Savar and tested at BCSIR as per Bangladesh Standards. On the other hand; a survey was conducted to assess consumer awareness about milk adulteration. A pre tested semi structured questionnaire, was used to collect the information. Statistical analysis was done by using Excel. Results: We found the concentration of formaldehyde and melamine in all 10 analyzed products below the level of detection. The majority (55.9%) of the respondents knew that there is a law in the country that deals with milk adulteration; among them 41.7% thought that the reduced mobile court activity is reason for unchanged milk adulteration situation and insufficient penalty is also a major factor (45%). Only (55.9%) respondents consider water is main milk adulterant and 31.8% know about Chemicals. The majority of the respondents 87.8% strongly agreed that milk adulteration has harmful effects on health. Conclusions: These findings may be helpful for the concerned government regulatory bodies to monitor the quality of the commercial milk in the market. Keywords: Milk, Adulteration, Formalin, Melamin 1 Department of Public Health and Informatics, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh Received: 19 July 2018 Revised: 05 October 2018 Accepted: 06 October 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. M. Sabrina Moonajilin, E-mail: moonajilin@juniv.edu Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20184554