Occurrence and Dietary Risk Assessment of Mycotoxins in Most Consumed Foods in Cameroon: Exploring Current Data to Understand Futures Challenges

Abstract

Mycotoxins are naturally occurring toxins that contaminate different crops and foodstuffs under certain circumstances during harvesting, handling, storage, and processing. Neither the dietary intake of mycotoxins in Cameroon is well characterized, nor its health effects on the consumers. This review is intended to be the first milestone towards national risk management of mycotoxins. It is noteworthy that mycotoxins contaminate the main staple foods of Cameroonian communities, which are also often used as complementary foods for infants, young children, and people with compromised immune systems (e.g., HIV/AIDS), thus calling for urgent intervention in primary and secondary prevention. Very few data exist on mycotoxin contamination in Cameroonian agricultural commodities and food items. Only 25 studies from 14 different authors have been published in the last decade. On the basis of available data in Cameroon, the Estimated Daily Intake (EDI) of major mycotoxins in foods for Aflatoxins was 0.0018–14.2 µg/kgbw/day in maize, 0.027–2.36 µg/kgbw/day in cassava, and 0.023–0.1 µg/kgbw/day in groundnuts. The estimated daily intake of fumonisins was 0.12–60.6 µg/kgbw/day in maize and 0.056–0.82 µg/kgbw/day in beans. Based on the estimated distribution of human exposure levels by food, maize and cassava are the major sources of exposure and should be prioritized, followed by beans and spices. This estimate will be updated along with improvements on the national database on mycotoxin contamination of Cameroonian foods.