AgraQuant^® NITROFURAN (SEM)

AgraQuant^® drug residue test kits are accurate and reliable direct competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) which operate on the basis of competition between the drug/metabolite in the sample and the drug enzyme conjugate for a limited number of specific antibody binding sites. Nitrofurans are synthetic broad-spectrum antibiotics used both prophylactically and therapeutically for various bacterial and protozoan infections in fish, shrimp, bees, swine, cattle and poultry, such as gastrointestinal enteritis (caused by Escherichia coli, and Salmonella spp.), fowl cholera and coccidiosis black-heads. It is also used as a growth promoter. Nitrofurazone is metabolised rapidly in vivo, forming SEM tissue bound residues in livestock. The use of nitrofuran antibiotics was prohibited in livestock production in the European Union (EU) in 1995 due to concerns about the carcinogenicity of their residues in edible tissues. In March 2003, EU has established a Minimum Required Performance Limits (MPRL) for nitrofuran related residues detected in poultry meat and aquaculture products at 1.0 ng/kg for each metabolite.