Prevalence of IBD?

[Skiploder]

Ok so if ibd was so bad dint you think they would be allowed at the expos?

There are much worse things than IBD....and you can get them at an Expo as well.....

....and they aren't confined to just boids.

[Running Elk]

...except that ball pythons don't die first, or faster or are any less able to remain asymptomatic carriers.

Is this a fact, or just that we have no absolute proof that they cannot in fact be asymptomatic carriers like boas?

[Running Elk]

There are much worse things than IBD....and you can get them at an Expo as well.....

....and they aren't confined to just boids.

You can't be that ominous on my thread and then not tell me what those worse things are. What do you have in mind?

I'm sure there are lots of really nasty things at shows. Anyone can buy a table at one.

[Skiploder]

Is this a fact, or just that we have no absolute proof that they cannot in fact be asymptomatic carriers like boas?

No absolute proof. I asked Jacobsen myself and shared the info on this forum.

[Skiploder]

You can't be that ominous on my thread and then not tell me what those worse things are. What do you have in mind?

I'm sure there are lots of really nasty things at shows. Anyone can buy a table at one.

I'll name one per day for the next week:

1. OPMV

[bcr229]

I'll name one per day for the next week:

1. OPMV

http://labs.vetmed.ufl.edu/sample-re...nfections/opm/
In Australia it is also referred to as ferlavirus.

[Running Elk]

No absolute proof. I asked Jacobsen myself and shared the info on this forum.

Despite there being no proof, is there any documented evidence leaning one way or another (that pythons can be asymptomatic carriers, or that they cannot be)? As in, has it been studied or anything? Or is the subject virtually unknown?

How is it that we know that boas can be asymptomatic carriers, but we do not know for pythons? Is it just that so far a python not showing any symptoms has not also tested positive for IBD (which, of course, doesn't mean they don't exist, it could just mean we haven't found one that does)?

If there is no proof, I find it interesting that so many people think as fact that pythons cannot be asymptomatic carriers...I wonder if this conclusion came from personal experience or mass misinformation on the subject (or both).


This is all very interesting -- I'm really glad I started this thread.

[Skiploder]

Despite there being no proof, is there any documented evidence leaning one way or another (that pythons can be asymptomatic carriers, or that they cannot be)? As in, has it been studied or anything? Or is the subject virtually unknown?

How is it that we know that boas can be asymptomatic carriers, but we do not know for pythons? Is it just that so far a python not showing any symptoms has not also tested positive for IBD (which, of course, doesn't mean they don't exist, it could just mean we haven't found one that does)?

If there is no proof, I find it interesting that so many people think as fact that pythons cannot be asymptomatic carriers...I wonder if this conclusion came from personal experience or mass misinformation on the subject (or both).


This is all very interesting -- I'm really glad I started this thread.

Mass information.

Just like the mass information out there that it always shows up with corkscrewing and neuro symptoms....the myth comes from the prevalence of early stories where whole ball collections were allegedly quickly wiped out. One of the most famous and well publicized IBD accounts was later proven to be a nasty case of viral encephalitis.

That brings us to our second in a line of ailments you can bring home from a reptile show:

(2) Adenovirus

Stay tuned for our next installment, where we veer off of viruses and into the wonderful world of highly contagious bacterial infections.

[Skiploder]

This is the copy of the first email exchange I had with Dr. Jacobsen. I feel comfortable sharing this openly as he has answered virtually the same to other people. I have shared it previously with some mods on this site.

(1) How long can a python or boa be asymptomatic?

No one knows. I have had snakes sent to me as control normals and they had IBD.


(2) What is the estimated infection rate among boa constrictors in the U.S.?

There is none. This would require a survey to owners and many would not tell you the truth.


(3) How long after I put my boas down can I safely assume that my pythons (mainly aspidites and antaresia) are safe?

I can't answer this because I have no data to support an answer, especially since we do not know how long a python can be asymptomatic.


(4) Can I also assume the same for my colubrids (clelia, drymarchon and rhamphiophis?).

Only one case has been seen in a colubrid and that needs to be revisited since that was based on H&E staining. We recently produced a monoclonal antibody against the IBD protein and are in the midst of validating it. There has been very limited money we have received to study this disease.

(5) Do you know of any boa breeders that are (a) either contributing to the research on this disease or (b) attempting to screen their animals?

No one recently.

I paid for liver and esophageal biopsies on random pythons at the time the disease was diagnosed in my boas all were negative. I have been a bit frustrated in talking to boa breeders as some of the better-known breeders pretty much poo-pooed the disease.

That is because they are in denial and if snakes that they sell eventually die then most people will go out and by another snake. As long as breeders can continue to sell animals, they could care less about solving health problems of these animals. That is the way this business will be for a long time to come. What is the incentive to change? Some snakes will only have IBD inclusions in the brain. Identifying these snakes before death right now is impossible.

Hope this helps,

EJacobson


This was in October of 2008.

Now with regards to some of the more publicized cases: While I was trying to make heads or tails between what I had read and what I was being told by vets, I contacted a forum member (another forum) and we discussed what he reported and what he later learned. What he had been told was IBD later turned out to be OPMV. IBD had been diagnosed based on his boas going first and necropsies finding the inclusion cells in the pharangeal esophagus. When his colubrids and elapids started dropping of, the vet then changed tack and OPMV was found to be the causative agent - the IBD was presumably there in his boas asymptomatically.

With the second case - this is the one with the old you tube videos and the lengthy write up on a popular but crappy herp info site. I tracked down the owner of the ball python collection and she said that after losing just about everything and being frustrated by her Vet's inability to contain what was going on, she got a second opinion, a new round of testing showed that (1) her biopsies never showed IBD (2) the final diagnosis was viral meningitis. Years ago I sent her an email and asked her to join here and relate her story...she never did.

It took a long time between the diagnosis of my first tarahumara and the end of the live biopsy screening of my pythons. In the interim, our vet pulled in another vet who had more experience with IBD and the veterinary staff at Davis. That is where I started hear more of what Dr. Jacobsen had related to me - that the whole python and IBD quick die-off thing was something that they hadn't seen. It was also where they informed me that OPMV and other viruses are largely unreported, mis-diagnosed (because snake owners by and large don't go for the testing) and that with all the focus on IBD, they felt that many of the virulent outbreaks with rapid die offs were OPMV or the like. More recently, the GGV virus was implicated in mass die offs....but that is another story....

What I was left with was this: IBD is often indicated in collection wide die offs. However, this was based on necropsies showing it present in boas in the collection. This was most likely coincidence as other viruses were later found that caused the deaths.

[Running Elk]

How fascinating.

How do people acquire these other viruses that you've mentioned as being the culprits of various outbreaks? From outside animals (not quarantining), or do they also lay dormant in their animals until a specific time? I would think that a rapid mass die-off of animals would almost certainly indicate that they brought it in from elsewhere abruptly.