The presence of fungal species, fungal loads, mycotoxins, and toxic metals was assessed in commercial

Overview

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Key numbers

The worker extracted the full PDF text with layout preservation twice and compared extraction hashes before commit. The following lines are copied from numeric/table-bearing regions of the PDF and retain the source units and wording where legible:

However, globally only 41% of babies are exclusively breastfed up to 6 months of age whilst sales of commercial
product types were obtained per region (Table 1). The sample size was determined using a Raosoft sample
size calculator (https://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.htm) with the following parameters: error margin = 5%,
confidence interval (CI) = 95%, Accra, Kumasi, and Ho population was approximately 4.5 million and a response
distribution of 50%. The products purchased were kept in an ice chest (Thermos, China) at a temperature of 4
About 1 g of sample was weighed into 10 ml 0.1% peptone water in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flasks using electronic
Percentage (%) occurrence of fungal species = .(2)
After weighing a 20 g homogenized sample, 80 ml of either 70% MeOH or an acetonitrile-water solution
Using a calibration curve centered on the standard used for spiking at 5 µg/kg (the calibration curve’s lowest
middle, and upper concentration ranges of the calibration curve concentrations of 5 ppb, 15 ppb, and 30 ppb,
PBY (n = 6) Banana and yoghurt
Table 1. Sample codes and their meanings per region (n = 30).
(Standard deviation/mean) * 100 (CEN official method EN14123)31.
Among repeatable outcomes, the repeatability relative standard deviation was less than 15%.
Less than 20% separated the findings obtained under intermediate precision settings from the intermediate
The measurement procedure’s percent recovery fell between 80 and 120%.
The limit of detection was less than 1 ug/kg for all aflatoxins.
The limit of quantification was less than 3 ug/kg for all aflatoxins.
B1 = 5.5%; B2 = 6.7%; G1 = 7.4%; G2 = 12.1% and total aflatoxins = 5.2%.
B1 = 13.2%; B2 = 13.4%; G1 = 13.7%; G2 = 12.2% and Total aflatoxins = 11.9%.
Low concentration: B1 = 107%; B2 = 87.2%; G1 = 113.4%; G2 = 112.8% and total aflatoxins = 108.2%.
High concentration: B1 = 102.6%; B2 = 101.6%; G1 = 104.2%; G2 = 104.4% and total aflatoxins = 103.3%.
vortexed before being pipetted into HPLC vials for measurement after being diluted with 1% aqueous acetic acid.
and all other reagents were of analytical grade. Distilled water, deionized water, 1.1% w/v sodium borohydride
contents to 95 °C for one to three hours. After cooling the digesting solution to room temperature, 1 mL of 30%
H2O2 was added, and it was heated for 20 min on a hot plate. After adding 1 mL more of 30% H2O2, the heating
As 193.7 0.2% w/v NaBH4 10% v/v HCl 900 500
Hg 253.7 0.2% w/v NaBH4 3% v/v HCl 300 500
As, Cd, Hg, Pb = mg/kg.(5)
Table 2. Certified mass fraction values and measured concentration of As, Cd, Pb, Cu, and hg in SRM 1547
Table 3. Reference doses and cancer slope factors of some heavy metals. *NA- Not Available at the time of
assuming 30 years); C is the concentration of heavy metals in infant food (mg/kg wet weight); and RfDo is the
oral RfD (mg/kg day− 1) (Table 3).
obtained from Kumasi ranged from 3.8, 4.02, 3.76, 4.1, and 3.74 log10 CFU/g, respectively. The means for the
Fig. 5. Mean fungal count of pureed baby foods from different regions in Ghana isolated on DRBC. HEC: Egg
Fig. 6. Mean fungal count of pureed baby foods from different regions in Ghana isolated on OGYE. HEC: Egg
respectively. The means for the samples HEC, HRP, HBP, PBY, and HMF obtained from Accra were 3.78, 3.77,
3.95, 3.62, and 3.81 log10 CFU/g, respectively. Figure 5 shows the results for the mean fungal counts that were
in Table 4, the quality of the infant and baby food samples obtained from Kumasi, Ho and Accra was below
Table 5 shows the fungal species identified in samples of pureed baby foods selected from each region and
70% of the samples across the three regions. Yeasts were the second most common fungal contaminant, found in
10–50% of the different pureed baby foods. Aspergillus niger was isolated in 7.5–35% of the samples.

Methods (brief)

(HPLC-FLD). Toxic metals such as copper (Cu), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg)
and chromium (Cr) were also determined by an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The results
showed the presence of fungal contaminants in all tested baby food samples, with counts ranging from
high aflatoxin contamination in organs and biological samples from children affected by kwashiorkor, the brain,
A random sampling technique was used to buy products from the markets. Samples consisted of pureed
vendors in three (3) different regions of Ghana (Fig. 1). The various safety analyses of the 90 different samples (30
samples/region x 3 regions) purchased were conducted in the laboratory using standardized methods. Fungal
product types were obtained per region (Table 1). The sample size was determined using a Raosoft sample
size calculator (https://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.htm) with the following parameters: error margin = 5%,
About 1 g of sample was weighed into 10 ml 0.1% peptone water in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flasks using electronic
weighing balance (OHAUS ®, UK) with a readability of 0.01 g. The samples were shaken in a Gallenkamp Orbital
Agar (OGYE CM0545B, Oxoid, Basingstoke, UK) as previously outlined by24,30. There were triplicate samples for
Extraction of samples
Chromatography (HPLC). 25 g of the sample was extracted using Methanol in water (200 ml) (8 + 2) and 5 g
NaCl. Fat samples with a fat content of over 50% were extracted using 100 ml of hexane in the standard methanol
aflatoxins were eluted in two stages using 0.5 ml and 0.75 ml of HPLC-grade methanol, respectively, and allowed
pipetted into HPLC vials for measurement.
Extraction and derivatization of aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1 and G2) from samples

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Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
b01ec52c	2026-08-04	major	2 sections added
d49e450f	2026-08-03	major	5 sections added; narrative text revised