>From:    dweasle <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Aleutians
>I can't believe how many posts I received from my short post of questions
>and concerns.  I had at least 40 e-mails, only two defending Warmfuzzy.
>What does that say?
 
To me it says that fear is in the minds of many ferret owners.
 
>Most of the e-mails I received are from people in the ferret community who
>are afraid of taking sides.
 
And they should be as the ferret community is made up of a group of
wonderful people - many of whom will readily turn on another.  I have
seen it here as well as at shows.
 
>It can take up to 12 months before signs of exposure hit.  Why would any
>good ferret owner or shelter not quarantine their place and ferrets,
>especially since not alot is known about transmitting it.
 
12 months, huh?  You know that for sure?  I think not.  Not enough is known
about ADV in ferrets for *12 months* to be the magic number.  Some strains
in mink are known to be transmitted in 10 days.  Some is longer.
 
As far as quarantine - ALL new ferrets should be quarantined to guard
against ANY disease.
 
>The main question still has not been answered?  Where are the ferrets that
>are positive for Aleutians?  Of what i was e-mailed, rumor or not, some
>were sold.  Isn't that wonderful, Maybe it could be you, who has now
>acquired an aluetians ferret.  Only to lose the ferret and all the others
>you presently have months from now.
 
The truth is that MANY folks may have ferrets that are positive and they
don't even know it.  Dr. Bloom infers that the prevalence of ADV infection
in ferrets is high.  His opinion stems from several surveys of random
testing for ADV along with the way ADV is transferred.  Reports of ADV
positive ferrets were reported in Central Southern England as well as
Wessex, Berkshire, London, Oxfordshire, Lancashire and Northampton.
There have been reports of ADV from all over the world - including Sweden,
Germany, England, United States, and on a fitch farm in New Zealand.  In
198 4, Volume II, number 2, of Surveillance, a publication in New Zealand
that devoted this issue to fitch farms, reported that at least seventeen
ferrets died from plasmacytosis, or ADV, in 1983.
 
Dr. Susan Brown studied 500 ferrets in the 1980's.  Thirteen percent of
those 500 ferrets tested positive for ADV.  Of those 13%, two ferrets
showed clinical signs of active ADV in three years.  A survey conducted by
Dr. Porter in 1982 suggested 40% of the ferrets he tested in the US were
positive.  Another survey in the US showed six out of twenty ferrets tested
were positive, while another survey showed four out of six ferrets tested
were positive.  With the boom in ferret population, it is hard to tell how
much this virus has spread or how high the instances of ADV are.
 
>Does anyone care where these poor ferrets are?  And where did it start
>from?  Is there someone who is breeding these ferrets?
 
Oh sure - we know where it started.  The virus in mink was discovered in
the late 1940's and was first thought to be a genetic defect in the
Aleutian genotype mink - hence the name Aleutian mink disease virus.
Later, it was discovered that all mink could be infected with ADV.
Plasmacytosis, as AD in ferrets was once called, dates back to the 1960's.
 
I am sure there are folks breeding ADV positive ferrets and they don't even
know it.
 
>How many more ferrets must die this death before we wake up and take a
>stand to stop the spread of it.
 
Ferrets that are positive with ADV can live normal lives and NEVER show any
clinical symtoms.  Positive ferrets have even been known to revert back to
negitive.
[Posted in FML issue 2868]