Include

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by cris

The thing is with a virus they apparently cant diagnose in a living animal(for some reason?) is that infected animals can show no symptoms and potentially carry the disease while others immune systems will 'defeat' the virus.

Is there any accurate information on the spread of this virus?

I think it would be a good idea for big snake breeders to donate a fair amount of profits into research, with a bit of money the problem shouldnt be hard to solve IMO

I think greater benefit will come out of information about possible transmission mediums. Unfortunately there is a great deal of irrational fear about OPMV at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me if the thought would cross a breeders mind "if I offer up information about the OPMV deaths I have had, will I be blacklisted in peoples minds".

I am not saying all breeders are thinking this, but no matter how well you can account for your biosecurity procedures and how well you've limited the impact people will still think "wasn't he the guy who had OPMV in his collection".

IMO (in my opinion) a simpler starting point would be to continue the education campaign within the reptile keeper community to remove the irrational fear and replace it with intelligent responsibilty. If people like olivehydra and nightowl continue to offer information about their keeping practices and OPMV outbreaks we can draw correlations between cases and identify potential transmission mediums.