The Poison Review

Fatal and Severe Box Jellyfish Stings, Including Irukandji Stings, in Malaysia, 2000-2010. Lippmann JM et al.  J Travel Med 2011;18:275-281.

Abstract

There have been few cases of stings from box jellyfish (including Carukia barnesi, the cause of Irukandji syndrome) documented in the waters of Malaysia. Despite occasional reports of deaths from such stings in the news media, there is no official repository of detailed and timely repots.

The authors of this rather ill-focused paper used internet resources such as the Divers Alert Network Asia-Pacific (DAN AP), Google alerts, and e-mail contacts, and PubMed searches.  Unfortunately, their exact methods in using these tools are completely unclear.

In any case, they identified three fatalities from jellyfish stings in Malaysia since 2000, and have some vivid (if sketchy) case histories of victims dying within seconds or minutes of being attacked. They conclude that these episodes have been significantly underreported, and that more stringent warnings and protective measures against jellyfish should be put in place.

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