Ciguatera poisoning in Europe: A traceback to Indian Ocean sourced snapper fish (Lutjanus bohar)

The consumption of seafood containing marine biotoxins called ciguatoxins (CTXs) can result in ciguatera poisoning (CP), a globally prevalent seafood-born human illness. The southwestern coast of India is a regional source of seafood attributed to isolated and mass outbreaks of CP since 2015, both locally and exported globally. Samples of frozen snapper product (Lutjanus bohar) described herein, were part of a 7000 kg international shipment into the European Union from southwest India and implicated in a CP outbreak in the Netherlands. DNA barcoding confirmed the species as Lutjanus bohar with a base pair identity of 99%. LC-MS/MS and HRMS analyses describe CTX-3C-group compounds with an in vitro Neuro-2a (cell-based) cytotoxicity MTT-assay based toxicity range of 0.79–5.39 ng CTX-3C equivalent (eq.) per g wet tissue eq. This CP traceback includes an investigation and description of the production chain distribution, catch region, outbreak, toxin-group, and follow-up actions for the seafood products associated with the outbreak. Together this in-depth traceback investigation provides an account of the CP outbreak from harvest to consumption for a region of coastal India with a sizable seafood production industry but with limited CP data.