Abstract
BACKGROUND: Ciguatera fish poisoning is caused by eating reef fish whose flesh is contaminated with ciguatoxin. A similar outbreak was reported in Kota Kinabalu District in 2012. On 15th February 2017, Area Health Office of Penampang received an unusual notification of suspected three food poisoning cases. Symptoms appeared after the cases had dinner at home. An investigation conducted aimed at verifying the outbreak, identifying the source and instituting control measures. METHODS: An investigation was conducted to identify factors associated with the outbreak. A suspected case was one who presented with at least one of these symptoms; muscle pains, numbness, diarrhoea, vomiting, itchiness or abdominal pain. Active case detection was conducted for household and fishmongers in the market. Blood and stool samples were sent for microbial infection. Food samples included fish at the cases house and market were sent for confirmation. RESULTS: Four cases out of five people were identified in the same household. Fifty percent of the cases were males and between the age of 20-59 years. The mean incubation period recorded was 7.3 hours. Muscle pain and numbness were present in all cases. Diarrhoea, vomiting, itchiness and abdominal pain were present in 50% of the cases. Food history revealed that all cases ate the red snapper and laboratory showed that it was positive for ciguatoxin. CONCLUSION: This was a household ciguatera fish poisoning related to ingesting food snapper. Further actions were required to monitor high risk fishes sold in the markets.
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@proceedings{APCPH-2019-139,
title = {Ciguatera Fish Poisoning Outbreak in Penampang District, Sabah - December 2017},
author = {Abdullah Husam and Shaari Ngadiman and Azmani Wahab and M. Comm. Med},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-07-22},
urldate = {2019-07-22},
journal = {6th Asia-Pacific Conference on Public Health 2019 Proceedings},
issue = {6},
abstract = {BACKGROUND: Ciguatera fish poisoning is caused by eating reef fish whose flesh is contaminated with ciguatoxin. A similar outbreak was reported in Kota Kinabalu District in 2012. On 15th February 2017, Area Health Office of Penampang received an unusual notification of suspected three food poisoning cases. Symptoms appeared after the cases had dinner at home. An investigation conducted aimed at verifying the outbreak, identifying the source and instituting control measures. METHODS: An investigation was conducted to identify factors associated with the outbreak. A suspected case was one who presented with at least one of these symptoms; muscle pains, numbness, diarrhoea, vomiting, itchiness or abdominal pain. Active case detection was conducted for household and fishmongers in the market. Blood and stool samples were sent for microbial infection. Food samples included fish at the cases house and market were sent for confirmation. RESULTS: Four cases out of five people were identified in the same household. Fifty percent of the cases were males and between the age of 20-59 years. The mean incubation period recorded was 7.3 hours. Muscle pain and numbness were present in all cases. Diarrhoea, vomiting, itchiness and abdominal pain were present in 50% of the cases. Food history revealed that all cases ate the red snapper and laboratory showed that it was positive for ciguatoxin. CONCLUSION: This was a household ciguatera fish poisoning related to ingesting food snapper. Further actions were required to monitor high risk fishes sold in the markets.},
note = {Type: POSTER PRESENTATION; Organisation: Sabah State Health Department, Pahang State Health Department, Terengganu State Health Department},
keywords = {apcph2019, ciguatera toxin, food poisoning, red snapper, Sabah},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {proceedings}
}