Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.fishupdate.com/news/full...y_skin_disease_hits_Australian_fishermen.html
Mystery skin disease hits Australian fishermen
Published: 07 October, 2011
It has been one of Australia's more bizarre fishing stories in recent weeks - reports of diseased fish and fishermen breaking out in boils and lesions.
It led to a three-week total fishing ban around a 500-square-kilometre area of Gladstone Harbour in Queensland, which has only just been lifted by the authorities.
Local fishermen say something was wrong with the water in the Gladstone Harbour area which is why some of them had picked up the skin infections. They blamed large scale dredging work which they said may have stirred up a number of contaminates.
One trawlerman said he tasted some of the water and woke up the next day with a sore throat and mouth ulcers. The incident has put the local seafood industry into something of a crisis.
Dr Michael Gardner, president of the Queensland Seafood Industry Association, said in an Australian Broadcasting radio interview that between 20 and 30 per cent of the fishermen working in Gladstone Harbour had developed some sort of skin problem.
He said: "What it looks like to me is it looks like a bacterial infection. There are skin lesions that after exposure, only needs a scratch or an abrasion and then you develop a pimple-like lesion which expands and develops into a boil - a boil-like lesion that then breaks down and leaves an ulcer. They persist for a time and heal and then further similar lesions break out elsewhere on the both upper and lower limbs."
Then on Thursday of this week the Gladstone fishermen were back at work after the Queensland authorities lifted the ban. Fisheries Minister Craig Wallace said tests had shown the water was safe for commercial and recreational fishing to resume after the ban was imposed on September 16. Investigations had shown the fish were sickened by a parasite and red spot disease.But Mr Wallace said tests on affected fish had shown that dredging operations were not at the root of the outbreak.
Mystery skin disease hits Australian fishermen
Published: 07 October, 2011
It has been one of Australia's more bizarre fishing stories in recent weeks - reports of diseased fish and fishermen breaking out in boils and lesions.
It led to a three-week total fishing ban around a 500-square-kilometre area of Gladstone Harbour in Queensland, which has only just been lifted by the authorities.
Local fishermen say something was wrong with the water in the Gladstone Harbour area which is why some of them had picked up the skin infections. They blamed large scale dredging work which they said may have stirred up a number of contaminates.
One trawlerman said he tasted some of the water and woke up the next day with a sore throat and mouth ulcers. The incident has put the local seafood industry into something of a crisis.
Dr Michael Gardner, president of the Queensland Seafood Industry Association, said in an Australian Broadcasting radio interview that between 20 and 30 per cent of the fishermen working in Gladstone Harbour had developed some sort of skin problem.
He said: "What it looks like to me is it looks like a bacterial infection. There are skin lesions that after exposure, only needs a scratch or an abrasion and then you develop a pimple-like lesion which expands and develops into a boil - a boil-like lesion that then breaks down and leaves an ulcer. They persist for a time and heal and then further similar lesions break out elsewhere on the both upper and lower limbs."
Then on Thursday of this week the Gladstone fishermen were back at work after the Queensland authorities lifted the ban. Fisheries Minister Craig Wallace said tests had shown the water was safe for commercial and recreational fishing to resume after the ban was imposed on September 16. Investigations had shown the fish were sickened by a parasite and red spot disease.But Mr Wallace said tests on affected fish had shown that dredging operations were not at the root of the outbreak.