9 People Die & 78 Hospitalized After Eating Sea Turtle Meat On The Island Of Zanzibar

Eight children and one adult have died after consuming sea turtle meat on Pemba Island. An additional 78 individuals were hospitalized, as reported by authorities in Zanzibar on Saturday.

Sadly, sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in the region, but it carries inherent risks, occasionally resulting in fatalities due to chelonitoxism, a form of food poisoning. Symptoms of chelonitoxism vary but include nausea, vomiting, and ulceration in the throat and mouth. In severe cases, patients can be affected by muscular weakness, partial paralysis, and agitation, with some falling into a coma. There is no known antidote and only supportive treatment can be offered to patients.

In response to the deaths, authorities in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania, swiftly dispatched a disaster management team lead by Hamza Hassan Juma to the affected island. Juma emphasized the critical importance of abstaining from consuming sea turtle meat, issuing a stern warning to the community.

The adult victim, who passed away late Friday, was identified as the mother of one of the deceased children. According to Dr. Haji Bakari, the district medical officer for Mkoani, the consumption of sea turtle meat occurred on Tuesday.

The incident is a reminder of a similar tragedy in November 2021, when seven individuals, including a three-year-old child, lost their lives on Pemba Island due to consuming sea turtle meat, while three others required hospitalization.

In Zanzibar, the most common turtles are the endangered green turtle and the critically endangered hawksbill turtle.

According to World Wildlife Fund, like other sea turtles, green turtles migrate long distances between feeding grounds and the beaches from where they hatched. They are found in warm subtropical and tropical ocean waters, and nesting occurs in over 80 countries worldwide.

Classified as endangered, green sea turtles are threatened by overharvesting of their eggs, hunting, fishing gear entanglement, and loss of nesting beach sites. Sadly, 90% of their population has decreased over the past half century.

According to the Olive Ridley Project, the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle is one of the smallest sea turtle species and is found throughout the central Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions. Alongside the Kemp’s Ridley’s sea turtle, the hawksbill sea turtle is believed to be the most endangered of the seven sea turtle species, with only approximately 8,000 nesting females remaining in the world.

The hawksbill sea turtle faces many challenges, that include, loss of nesting habitat and coral reef destruction due to coastal development, rising seas from climate change, pollution, egg harvesting, and wildlife trafficking.