Ciguatera poisonings: A global review of occurrences and trends

Abstract

Ciguatera Poisoning (CP) is the most prevalent, phycotoxin related seafood poisoning across the globe, affecting between 10,000 and 50,000 people annually. This illness results from the consumption of seafood contaminated with lipid soluble toxins known as ciguatoxins (CTXs) that are produced by benthic dinoflagellates in the genera Gambierdiscus and Fukuyoa. The present work reviews the global occurrence of CP events and outbreaks, based on both scientific and gray literature.Please note that this is an author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available on the publisher Web site. Highlights► A geographical expansion of ciguatera poisoning incidents is observed since 2000. ► Atypical forms of CP involving sharks and marine invertebrates are reported. ► CP cases and outbreaks remain largely under-reported on a global level. ► Gambierdiscus and Fukuyoa spp. global distribution is updated and summarized.

Evidence for the Range Expansion of Ciguatera in French Polynesia: A Revisit of the 2009 Mass-Poisoning Outbreak in Rapa Island (Australes Archipelago)

“…Increasing numbers of poisonings linked to the consumption of seafood contaminated with marine toxins are being reported worldwide [1][2][3][4]. Among the dozen of poisoning syndromes described so far [5], ciguatera poisoning (CP) represents the most common non-bacterial seafood poisoning globally.…”

“…[19]. Although ciguatera-related fatalities are rare (<0.1% of reported cases), the high morbidity of this debilitating and sometimes long-lasting illness makes it both a prominent public health issue [4,15,19] and a major impediment for subsistence and recreational fisheries worldwide [21][22][23][24].…”

“…Until the 2000s, the distribution of ciguatera-causing organisms and ciguatoxic fish were thought to be limited to regions between latitudes 35 • N and 35 • S, with the highest poisoning incidence rates consistently reported from two tropical, historical CP-endemic areas, the Pacific and Caribbean regions [4] (for review and references therein) and [25,26], which is a situation due in part to the strong reliance of local communities on marine resources. The first reports of consumer illness and/or detection of ciguatoxic fish caught in previously non-endemic areas can be found in the literature as early as 2004 from localized areas such as the Macaronesia (Canary Islands, Madeira) [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], the eastern Mediterranean [37], the Gulf of Mexico [38], or the coast of Cameroon in West Africa [21].…”

“…The current expansion of CP to novel areas such as Macaronesia and east and southeast Asia since the 2000s is now well established [4]. Multiple factors are believed to contribute to this expansion of the geographical range of CP, such as anthropogenic disturbances [49][50][51], naturally occurring environmental changes, including long-term climatic oscillations and global warming [52,53], which likely provide favorable conditions for the migration and settlement of CP causative organisms in temperate-like (and warmer) areas of the globe [4,54] (for reviews and references therein).…”

“…The current expansion of CP to novel areas such as Macaronesia and east and southeast Asia since the 2000s is now well established [4]. Multiple factors are believed to contribute to this expansion of the geographical range of CP, such as anthropogenic disturbances [49][50][51], naturally occurring environmental changes, including long-term climatic oscillations and global warming [52,53], which likely provide favorable conditions for the migration and settlement of CP causative organisms in temperate-like (and warmer) areas of the globe [4,54] (for reviews and references therein). Modeling CP occurrences based on long-term time-series data and/or temperature projections has also been addressed in several papers [55,56]; however, few studies have actually provided a clear assessment of the link between global warming and increased number of CP cases [25,[57][58][59].…”