Ciguatera poisoning

Fact sheet - Food safety, Queensland Government.

Ciguatera poisoning is a form of food poisoning. It is caused by eating warm water ocean finfish that carry ciguatera poison (a toxin). This poison is produced by a very tiny organism called a dinoflagellate, which attaches itself to algae growing in warm ocean water reef areas. Small plant-eating fish eat this toxic algae and in turn are eaten by larger predatory fish which are eaten by humans.

• Read Queensland Health guidelines for public health units

Notification resources

• List of all Pathological, clinical and provisional diagnosis notifiable conditions
• List of Public Health Unit contacts
• Notifiable conditions report form for Queensland doctors/clinicians (PHA S70) or person in charge of a Hospital (PHA S71) (PDF, 77kB) - if faxing notification, follow up by phone.
• Notification criteria for pathology laboratories (PDF, 55kB)

Enhanced surveillance for public health units

• Suspected ciguatera fish poisoning questionnaire (PDF, 143kB) - used by public health units to collect and manage more detailed information for enhanced case surveillance.

• View communicable diseases data for notifiable conditions in Queensland.
• Find OzFoodNet annual and quarterly reports.