ECE is viral; i.e. antibiotics do not touch it.

It can get bacterial complications, though. Antibiotics can touch
those. Of course, bacteria can cause infections without ECE.

The chances of it being ECE about about zero. It HAS to be caught from
another infected ferret. Where did your ferrets encounter an infected
ferret within just a few short weeks of getting sick? Weren't you and
they were in Addis for a month or more before they took ill?

If bacterial then infection from food, soil, animal waste, water, etc.
are more likely.

Parasites other than coccidia are also possible; for example, it would
pay to see if ferrets have ever gotten schistosomiasis. At least one
species of schistosome infects dogs and cats, too, so African ones also
might, and having been outside: were there puddles that could have had
run-off/over-flow that carried snails? The symptoms certainly fit
tightly, but they do for a range of possible causes.

Read this:

http://www.afip.org/consultation/vetpath/ferrets/ECE/ECE.html

Sorry about being short; my eye is not up to more. Also, use a larger
grain of salt than usual for any of us non-vets since I am still a bit
under the weather post-op.

What about the vet school in Addis? Have the ferrets been taken there
and tested yet? Will anyone there see them to do so? Till then you are
grasping at straws, but without a source of infection with the right
timing ECE is simply NOT possible, and antibiotics would not touch it,
anyway.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 5969]