Antimicrobial and Pesticide Residues in Animal-Source Foods in Bangladesh: A Meta-Analysis with Probabilistic Dietary Exposure and Health-Risk Assessment.

Abstract

Intensifying livestock, poultry and aquaculture production in Bangladesh has been accompanied by unregulated antimicrobial and persistent organochlorine pesticide use, yet no national synthesis has linked residue occurrence in animal-source foods (ASF) to consumer health risk. This study aimed to pool the prevalence and concentration of antimicrobial and pesticide residues in Bangladeshi ASF and to estimate dietary exposure and risk using deterministic and probabilistic frameworks benchmarked against health-based guidance values. Following PRISMA 2020, five databases were searched from January 2010 to April 2026. Random-effects models (Freeman-Tukey transformation, DerSimonian-Laird estimator) pooled prevalence across five matrices. Estimated daily intakes were combined with national consumption data and JECFA/JMPR acceptable daily intakes (ADI) to derive hazard quotients (HQ), a cumulative hazard index (HI) and margins of exposure (MOE); a 10 000-iteration Monte-Carlo simulation characterized high-consumer (P95) exposure. Thirty-five studies (5 255 samples) were analyzed. Pooled prevalence was 12.9% (95% CI 8.8-17.6; I2 = 95.8%), highest in farmed fish (40.3%) and lowest in egg (4.7%); tetracyclines, fluoroquinolones and organochlorines predominated. For the average adult all HQ were ≪ 1 and the cumulative HI was 0.031; heptachlor and dieldrin dominated (P95 %ADI 6.2 and 4.7). The child HI (≈ 0.062) remained below unity; chloramphenicol P95 MOE fell to 253. Central-tendency dietary risk is low, but high-consumer tails, cumulative exposure, prohibited-substance detection and small-study effects justify strengthened, Codex-aligned residue surveillance, withdrawal-period enforcement and risk-based national monitoring within a One-Health framework.