well im glad to put in my 2 cents worth that the opmv has not had a breakout in darwin so im happy to get my snakes off a 12yo professional seller/breeder.........i feel bad for the ppl who have opmv bad in thier states
Simone,
I hate to tell ya this, but your comment is a bit close minded and very naive. Just because there are no reports, doesn't mean that it isn't there. You might as well stick your head in the sand. Even I knew about diseases like IBD (yes it has some similar symptoms to OPMV, so who can tell until you take it to a pathologist and in either case it's fatal and as far as I remember there have been reported cases up there) when I started herping up there over 10 years ago. OPMV is a relatively new term to me, but a disease that kills nevertheless.
There are a lot of lax rules up there i.e. not requiring permits for childreni and it's a relatively fast growing hobby, with imports regularly coming from interstate. All it takes is one carrier up there to ruin the industry. You are already very aware that the environement up there grow pathogens very quickly.
There are many breeders out there who have never had any issues by understanding the nature of the disease and taking precautions to protect their hobby. Keeping herps in itself is rewarding but is a bit more of an expensive hobby than most other pets due to start up costs and management. The loss of a any let alone a large amount of our precious herps is devastating. To even hear the mention of this disease in anyones collection makes it worse.
In either case, it all just means we move on with the times and update our husbandry skills to involve quarrantine, barrier care, and cross contamination procedures. There are no requirements to be all detective Monk about it and have an OCD issue, it just means we take appropriate precautions. JMO
Furthermore, I have been led to believe that there is a test being developed based on an already existing test used for a lot of pathogens, and most commonly known and used for STD's like chlamydia and gonorrhoea. PCR- Polymerase chain reaction uses a sample like blood to find a specific genetic. It multiplies these codes and the crux is that it can identify the most prevalent specific genetic code. Quicker, a little cheaper, and doesn't necessarily involve euthanaising to get a sample.