tailieunhanh - Toxicity of some marine snails responsible for recent food poisonings in Vietnam

During the years of 2006 - 2007, about five food poisoning cases with fatalities caused by marine snails reported in coastal areas of Vietnam. From stock over of poisoning materials from three out of five cases, causative species were identified as Nassarius papillosus, Nassasius (Alectrion) glans glans, N. (Zeuxis) comptus and Natica (Natica) fasciata. These species also caused poisonings in several countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. | Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ biển T10 (2010). Số 3. Tr 89 - 95 TOXICITY OF SOME MARINE SNAILS RESPONSIBLE FOR RECENT FOOD POISONINGS IN VIETNAM DAO VIET HA Viện Hải dương học SHIGERU SATO Trường ðại học Kitasato, Nhật Bản Summary: During the years of 2006 - 2007, about five food poisoning cases with fatalities caused by marine snails reported in coastal areas of Vietnam. From stock over of poisoning materials from three out of five cases, causative species were identified as Nassarius papillosus, Nassasius (Alectrion) glans glans, N. (Zeuxis) comptus and Natica (Natica) fasciata. These species also caused poisonings in several countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. High level of tetrodotoxin was found in the specimens of N. papillosus as the causative component for food poisoning with three patients including two deaths on October 17, 2006 in Quang Ngai province. In contrast, no tetrodotoxin was detected in three other snail species which were eaten at the poisonings on December 17, 2007 in Ninh Thuan province and December 27, 2007 in Binh Thuan province. Although the origin of tetrodotoxin in marine snails has not been clarified yet, it is urgently necessary to warn potential risks from marine snails to public as some of them may become suddenly toxic with unknown mechanism. Keywords: Poisonings, marine snails, Nassasius, Natica, tetrodotoxin. I. INTRODUCTION Among several marine snails, some species belonging to the genus Conus have been known as venomous as they cause envenomation by injecting toxins to human through sting (Halstead, 1988). In addition, some marine snails become toxic occasionally and cause human poisonings. Poisonings by eating marine snails were reported in Japan [Hashimoto, 1979], Philippines, Brunei (Meds, 2002), Malaysia (Kan et al., 1986), Taiwan (Yang et al., 1995) and French Polynesia (Gatti et al., 2008). Most of the toxic species belong to Turbinidae, Trotridae, Cymatidae, Olividae and Aplysiadae .