Tetrodotoxin:
Food safety authorities and doctors suspect that the severe illness in people who consumed seafood at a restaurant in Vizhinjam, Kerala, was caused by contamination with a highly potent marine neurotoxin, likely tetrodotoxin (TTX).
- It is an extremely potent marine neurotoxin.
- It naturally occurs in the skin, intestine, and liver of some fish in the family Tetraodontidae.
- Examples include puffer fish, porcupine fish, ocean sunfish, and some species of newts and salamanders.
- Human poisonings occur when the flesh and/or organs of the fish are improperly prepared and eaten.
- TTX interferes with the transmission of signals from nerves to muscles and causes an increasing paralysis of the muscles of the body.
- Its toxicity is more than 1000 times greater than sodium cyanide.
- TTX poisoning can be fatal.
- It has no known antidote. Treatment is mainly supportive.
