Box Jellyfish Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines & The Region

Box jellyfish are widespread throughout the Indo-Pacific region and, while this blog is primarily focused on South-East Asia, tragic news of a fatality in a far north-east corner of tropical Australia resonates with relevancy throughout thousands of similar coastal communities. A young man of 17 has sadly lost his life, stung by a box jellyfish while net fishing with family at a faraway beach on the York Peninsula.  Box jellyfish are active right across the northern stretch of Australia during the wet season from October to May and stings from Chironex fleckerii and Irukandji occur though deaths are uncommon. Australia has developed a reasonably sophisticated and successful system of prevention and treatment education and tools so as to avoid tragic deaths such as that which occurred at Bamaga in Queensland this week. But, it's far from perfect. In fact, its effectiveness through concerted effort over a number of years is limited to specific places and areas, us...

Chalok Lam Bay in the north of Koh Phangan, Thailand has had an alarming increase in dangerous box jellyfish sightings over September, 2018. Thailand's Department of Marine & Coastal Resources has as a result issued a warning to avoid swimming anywhere in the bay until further notice.

Sadly it seems as though it was just a matter of time. There have recently been credible reports of several serious jellyfish stings in the Koh Samui region. Victims have been hospitalised. On nearby Koh Phangan where there were two box jellyfish fatalities in a 12-month period in 2014-15, divers have sighted dangerous jellyfish and a few have been pulled out of the water close to the beach.

Un petit Français de 5 ans succombe à une piqûre de méduse