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Saxitoxin was identified in a freshwater puffer, Tetraodon fangi, which caused food poisoning in Thailand. Tetrodotoxin, a puffer toxin, was not detected in the species by the HPLC-fluorometric analysis, showing that tetrodotoxin is absent or under any detectable level. The result of this study shows that saxitoxin can be a major toxin in puffer.

Two clones of Protogonyaulax cohorticula were isolated from the Gulf of Thailand. The extracts of these clones killed mice with typical signs of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The toxicities corresponded to those of strongly toxic clones of P. tamarensis. In the HPLC and electrophoretic analyses, gonyautoxins and saxitoxin were detected. About 80% of the toxins consisted of gonyautoxin I. These results show that P. cohorticula is a toxic species of Protogonyaulax and that it is at least one of the causative organisms of paralytic shellfish poisoning in Thailand.

Infection by JE virus still constitutes major cause of encephalitis in Chiang Mai Area, although some cases of possible dengue encephalopathy were observed. In spite of many apparent encephalitis cases, infection of vector mosquitoes by JE virus was not demonstrated. Virus isolation from hospitalized patients showed that the principal type of dengue virus circulating in Chiang Mai in 1982 was type 1 virus. Seroepidemiological survey on healthy humans indicated that the northern part of Chiang Mai Province in the region of the Maekong Valley has not yet been invaded so much by dengue viruses, compared with the Chiang Mai Valley, where dengue infection apparently became more prevalent than 12 years ago. The survey also indicated that the spread of JE virus in the study area was not uniform. Survey on vertebrates showed that anti-JE antibodies were highly prevalent among swine, horses, mules, sheep, and dogs. On the other hand, antibody prevalence was low in monkeys, ducks, and sparrows, and was negative among chickens and lizards. IgM-ELISA appeared to help differential diagnosis on JE from dengue even when the HI test did not give positive results.