Disease Spread Through Amphibian Trade!

Recently, scientists have discovered that the spread of many amphibian viruses can be traced back to the animal trade.  Each year, over 100 million amphibians are taken from the wild and sold into the animal trade circuit.  More often than not, these amphibians contain either the ranavirus or the chytrid fungus, which is currently a major problem with Dendrobatids in South America.  Hong Kong, being the hub of the pet trade, is where most of the amphibian shipments to the U.S. come from.  Scientists sampled shipments that came into the U.S. from Hong Kong and found that 11.7% of amphibians had the chytrid fungus and five out of eight shipments carried the virus in the water (amphibians are shipped in water).  Astonishingly, the scientists also discovered that 56.8% of these specimens carried the ranavirus (another detrimental amphibian virus).  The problem with the trade today is that sanitation sanctions implemented in the United States are not carried out in Hong Kong, allowing the presence of these diseases to continue to be an issue.  The World Organization for Animal Health suggests that water transporting amphibians be sanitized before being disposed of.  Clearly any laws we implement here in the United States concerning the greater health of our wild amphibian populations are not seen as important in other nations like China, allowing this issue to continue to go on.


https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/amphibian-diseases-flow-through-animal-trade