On 19/9, the Bach Mai Hospital Poison Control Center reported a late August incident where three men in Quang Ninh went fishing and caught a 200-gram pufferfish. They cooked it along with other seafood and vegetables. 20 minutes later, a 21-year-old man experienced severe headaches and nausea, dying en route to the hospital. The two other men didn't eat the pufferfish directly but consumed the other food cooked with it. After about 4 hours, they experienced numbness in their fingertips and were admitted to the hospital conscious, with stable vital signs, and no paralysis.

Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center, explained that pufferfish poisoning is among the most dangerous types of food poisoning, with a high mortality rate. Pufferfish contain a potent neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, 275 times stronger than cyanide. Just 0.5 mg is enough to kill an adult. The toxin is concentrated in the fish's internal organs and skin, but the meat also contains it. Critically, tetrodotoxin isn't broken down by heat during cooking.

Tetrodotoxin directly affects the nervous and cardiovascular systems upon entering the body. Symptoms include numbness around the mouth, tongue, and face, followed by paralysis of muscles throughout the body. Other symptoms include cardiac arrhythmia, hypotension, seizures, and coma. Victims often die quickly from respiratory paralysis and respiratory arrest.

There is currently no specific antidote for tetrodotoxin. The only course of action is to provide emergency respiratory and circulatory support.

Dr. Nguyen warned that besides pufferfish, other marine creatures in Vietnam also contain tetrodotoxin, including the blue-ringed octopus, some sea snails, and horseshoe crabs. These can be processed into commercially sold products like fish cakes or dried fish with sesame, making them difficult to identify.

To protect their health, people should absolutely avoid catching, trading, processing, and consuming pufferfish, blue-ringed octopuses, and horseshoe crabs.

Le Nga