29/04/14: Queries on Antibiotics

Vietnamese Government through the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (Nafiqad) said it had received warnings from the EU and Japan about the Oxytetracyline antibiotic found in Vietnam’s shrimp shipments.

In January-April alone, these two markets detected 11 shrimp shipments with high Oxytetracyline antibiotic residues. Japan has found four more shrimp batches from Vietnam having Oxytetracyline antibiotic residue problems since March 14 when that country launched checks on all the raised shrimp shipments from Vietnam after detecting the antibiotic residue excess in two batches of shrimp.

Although Oxytetracyline antibiotic is allowed in seafood farming, the fact that Vietnamese raised shrimp had been warned of the excessive antibiotic content by the two major shrimp importers indicated that this substance was being overused in local shrimp farming, Nafiqad said.

Currently, the allowable level of Oxytetracyline antibiotic in the EU is 0.1ppm. This is also the permissible rate for seafood products that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development specifies in Circular 15/2009/TT-BNN.

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