Fourth, no autopsy was performed on the deceased infant. In-
fant mortality in Moheli is high with respiratory infections and
diarrheal diseases as primary causes (World Health Organisation
and Global Health Observatory, 2013) (malaria is on the verge of
elimination on the island) so the authors cannot exclude that the
death of the infant was unrelated to the outbreak. However, the
mother reported that the infant did not have fever.
The authors confirmed an outbreak of food poisoning in a
coastal village of Moheli, where one infant died. The investigation
suggests that turtle meat from an illegally caught Eretmochelys
imbricata sea turtle was the vehicle of this outbreak. The causative
agent remains unclear but it is probably coming from a toxin found
in algae consumed by Eretmochelys imbricata. The Chelonia mydas
species, known as green turtle, can also carry the toxin. There was
one fatality in an infant who might have ingested the toxin via
maternal milk.