Fish food fears spark price plunge
(CNN) -- Hard-hit Indian Ocean fishermen are being hurt again by falling demand for seafood prompted by fears it may be contaminated by decaying bodies that were swept out to sea by the tsunamis.
The unfounded fears that fish could pass on disease or bacteria has prompted price falls in some key markets, according to media reports.
People in the south of India are choosing dried fish over a fresh product, while buyers in the capital, New Delhi, are also being cautious, the Times of India reports.
Sri Lankan and Malaysian fish markets have also suffered as a result of the fears.
This is despite scientific teams from India's Cochin University and other institutes finding no evidence of contamination.
Marine experts and governments across the region are also trying to downplay the fears, which are threatening the livelihoods of fishermen already suffering in the wake of the tsunamis.
The Chief of the World Health Organization said last week that he had been eating fish in tsunami-affected countries without problems.
"Fish is a good source of protein and I am eating fish every day. No problem," WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said, according to an Associated Press report.
Lee said the widely held perception that fish were contaminated by the human corpses washed out to sea was wrong.
"WHO advises people to eat fish," he said.
But that message is proving slow to get across.
"I don't want to eat fish and crabs that might have been feeding off dead flesh," housewife Lee Kim Eng was quoted in Singapore's Sunday Times as saying.
Prices in the city-state have dropped by as much as half and business is down 30 per cent, that newspaper says.
Worst-hit are Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu where fish markets, virtually deserted, are selling seafood at one-tenth of what they cost prior to the earthquake-triggered December 26 tsunami, according to the report.
Experts say the tsunamis will more likely have a positive effect for the marine food chain.
The churning sea would have brought a boom in the amount of food available for the fish, such as micro-organisms, plankton, plants and other dead fish.
"So the fish and crabs have plenty of their usual food supply and don't have to resort to eating dead human flesh," associate professor Peter Ng, a crustacean expert at the National University of Singapore, was quoted as saying.
