The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) authorizes a total of 128 drugs for treatment of mastitis in dairy cattle in Spain. A study carried out by our company in November 2019 with information available from CIMAVet (veterinary drug information center) shows that 34.4% of them are beta-lactams, 28.9% quinolones, 13,3% macrolides and 10.2% tetracyclines. Aminoglycosides (7%), sulfonamides (2.3%) and other antibiotics of different chemical structure (3.9%) complete the whole list.

A scheme for antibiotic residues control in milk should be designed to detect as many substances as possible at the legal level and with the appropriate frequency and affordable cost.

The most effective solution to detect 90% of these drugs at the legal level (EU-MRL) and 8% more at twice the regulatory limits is to combine two complementary tests: Eclipse and QuinoScan. Both tests are very easy and can be run by any user without previous training. Results obtained by both tests are loaded in an online platform. So, they are always available on the computer or any smart device.

Table. Antibiotics detected with the combined tests of Eclipse&QuinoScan. Column 1 shows the percentage of authorised antibiotics for each group. Column 2 the total number of medicines. Column 3 the level of detection, as equal to MRL, less sensitive than MRL or twice the MRL. In brackets the number of antibiotics detected at that level.