Fish is now a source of stomach troubles

Hyderabad: Histamine (which causes allergy and food intolerance) forming in fish species like tuna, Indian mackerel and sardine — recently listed by Food Safety Authority of India under the category of “fish species having potential to cause histamine poisoning” — is making its way into homes due to improper refrigeration and preservation in cities in Telangana including Hyderabad and in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

]The Central ministry of Health and Family Welfare had issued a notification amending the “other contaminants” list in which more than 130 fish species were named including at least a dozen native species of India that are also sold in AP and TS.

Fish stalls and markets have been selling these fish that can potentially cause rashes and gastro-intestinal problems if not refrigerated, posing a public health risk, warn experts.

Hotels and restaurants also fail to refrigerate the fish properly, leading to food intolerance. In healthy fish, histamine is less than 0.1 mg per 100 gram but in samples of fish that lead to poisoning, histamine levels of at least 20 to 50 mg per 100 gram have been recorded.

According to FSSAI experts, at room temperatures the histamine concentration rapidly increases.

Transport to Hyderabad from Visakhapatnam and other coastal areas is not done properly in several cases. Even the ice used by fish stalls and units contain E-coli as inferior/impure quality of water is used to freeze into ice.

Pathogens like E-Coli and Klebsiella convert histidine present in fish tissue to histamine.

General physician Dr J. Anish Anand said, “We have not encountered any patient who have had histamine poisoning after they ate fish. However we get patients with skin rashes and allergies after eating sea food and they are known to have previous histories of intolerance to fish and prawn. Western patients behave differently from South Asians on food allergies. Peanut allergies are common in the West but we seldom come across such allergies.”

He added, “But definitely there are issues with refrigeration and preservation. There no standards and authorities to check properly on the kind of food restaurants serve and what fish the stalls sell.”

Food Safety authorities do not lift samples of raw fish and neither have equipment to test histamine levels in fish. Mr G. Vinod Dayal, deputy food controller, TS Food Safety department said, “We lift samples of prepared food like biryani and test for chemicals.”