http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/message/8999 and http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/message/9008 >Mystery Illness is NOT ECE >But - we still don't know what it is. > >I heard from MSU today, the tissue sent in tested negative for >coronavirus. They did find coccidia in the intestines (which my >regular pathologist had not found), despite my having run samples >in the double digits checking for coccidia, all of which had been >negative. I'll be checking again, repeatedly, but honestly am having >trouble fitting coccidia into the epidemiology of how the disease >spread through my household, as well as the fact that the disease >stopped without any treatment being done for coccidia. And pretty much >stopped dead when I started an antiviral medication. At least one >other house affected with the illness had also tested multiple times >and come up negative. > >It is very possible that this was a virus of a different type, which >led to immunosuppression and a bloom of coccidia in the ferret whose >tissue was tested. > >The lab has asked for additional samples, so I'll be sending in tissue >from another of the victims of the disease, and we'll see if anything >else shows up, including coccidia in this one as well, which would >make it more likely to have been a highly pathogenic variant of >coccidia. > >I am glad that it's not ECE - but still stumped and frustrated as to >what it truly was. > >Dr. Ruth and in reply to someone asking if it might have been salmonella: >Well, at least in my household, there is no uncooked food given to >the ferrets, and I had a culture done specifically for Salmonella, >which was negative. > >I have heard from someone privately who had a coccidiosis outbreak >some years ago in which five ferrets were lost within 24 hours, >thirteen total lost by the end of the outbreak, and the coccidia was >only diagnosed by necropsy results - but that outbreak was only ended >with aggressive treatment for the coccidia, which was not done in my >household. So - I'm still stumped. We'll see what the next set of >tissue tells us. > >Dr. Ruth 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 6210]