RED TIDES IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Red tides and paralytic shellfish poisoning caused by Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum have been recorded in the Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific since 1972, although it appears certain that there were previous outbreaks in Papua New Guinea at least and research in Phillipines found that Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum cyst present in Manila Bay long before the first detected bloom.

At present the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense is confined to tropical, mangrove-fringed coastal waters of the Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific. The first harmful implications of Pyrodinium blooms became evident in 1972 in Papua New Guinea. Red-brown water discolourations coincided with fatal food poisoning of three children, and a mouse bio-assay on shellfish from a house in the affected village subsequently establish Pyrodinium bahamense as a source of paralytic shelfish poisoning. Since then, toxic Pyrodinium blooms have spread to Brunei and Sabah, Malaysia (1976), the Central Philippines (1983), the Northern Philippines (1987) and Indonesia(1983).

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