8 children, 1 adult die after eating sea turtle meat in Zanzibar, officials say
8 children, 1 adult die after eating sea turtle meat in Zanzibar, officials say
Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/7927997
8 children, 1 adult die after eating sea turtle meat in Zanzibar, officials say
Symptoms of chelonitoxism vary according to the toxin and include gastrointestinal symptoms of nausea, vomiting and oro-esophageal ulceration, sometimes followed in severe cases by neurologic signs such as paresis, agitation and coma.
JFC
To add on to this, because I was curious what was causing the turtles to be toxic in this way.
The toxins responsible for chelonitoxism have not been definitively identified, but are thought to accumulate in turtles from their environment and diet, without harming the turtles themselves. All parts of the turtles are potentially toxic, whether the meat is eaten raw, cooked, or in soup.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy by Zanzibar's people even though it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning.
The adult who died late Friday was the mother of one of the children who succumbed earlier, said the Mkoani District medical officer, Dr. Haji Bakari.
Bakari told The Associated Press that laboratory tests had confirmed all the victims had eaten sea turtle meat.
Authorities in Zanzibar, which is a semi-autonomous region of the East African nation of Tanzania, sent a disaster management team led by Hamza Hassan Juma, who urged people to avoid consuming sea turtles.
That species has faced a new challenge caused by the warming waters off the northeast U.S. coast, which has led them to linger longer into the late autumn of Massachusetts, when they should have headed south.
Since the 1970s, Kemp's Ridley turtles have been washing ashore on Massachusetts beaches in a hypothermic-state called cold-stunning by the dozens.
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