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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-11 Daily Xml
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Algal Bloom

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (15:07): My question is again to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. When was SA Health first advised that a new toxin-producing algal species had been detected and what public health risk assessments were undertaken?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:07): To put it best as did the Acting Chief Public Health Officer, Dr Chris Lease, when he was doing media interviews about this last week, he said to the effect that we knew for many months that there was brevetoxin in the water. We knew therefore that there was a type of Karenia that was causing brevetoxin and what we know now is the name for it. That doesn't change the public health advice because we knew there was a brevetoxin being produced in the water. That informed that change in the public health advice some months ago.

The confirmation of the exact species of Karenia doesn't change the advice because we already knew there was a type of Karenia in the water that was producing brevetoxins. It took that further work by, I believe, the University of Technology, Sydney, which took some time, to be able to specifically identify what type of Karenia it was, but that doesn't change the public health advice, and that has been a decision for our public health officials and they have communicated that and answered questions to the media about that publicly.

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