A Review on Veterinary Drug Residues in Foods of Animal Origin and the Effect of Different Processes on Their Stability

In spite of their advantages in the treatment of animal diseases, veterinary drugs can remain in foods of animal origin and cause considerable threats to the consumer health. Antibiotics, anthelminthics, Anticoccidial drugs, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are the major veterinary drugs that can contaminate food products. Food processing can be considered as a strategy for the removal of drug residues in foods. Awareness of drug residues and their reductions during different processes can be important in terms of the consumer health. This paper, therefore, reviews the literature on veterinary drug residues in foods of animal origin, including milk and milk products, eggs, meat, and meat products, as well as the effect of different processes on the stability of these drug residues. To this end, all related articles and theses were reviewed from national (SID, Irandoc, and MagIran) and international (Science Direct, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Pub Med) databases. According to reviewed studies, most of foods of animal origin in Iran were contaminated with antibiotic residues. In other countries, foods of animal origin contained different levels of drug residues. Based on scientific findings, heat processing could reduce the residues of tetracycline, macrolides, aminoglycosides, and sulfonamides in milk, residues of tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, sulfanilamide, and chlorpyrifos in eggs, and residues of oxytetracycline, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, sulfonamides, and anthelminthics in meat products. The microwave, freezing, and fermentation processes were also effective in the reduction of drug residues in foods.