Sunshine and blisters

Authors: Johnson R, Hyndman T
Publication: Proceedings of the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) Annual Conferences, Volume 2014 AVA Annual Conference, Perth, Issue Unusual Pets and Avian / Conservation Biology, May 2014
Publisher: Australian Veterinary Association

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Abstract: In 2008, an outbreak of neuro-respiratory disease in a collection of 70 Australian pythons from the Sunshine Coast of Queensland resulted in the destocking of the entire collection. Clinical signs and histological findings in snakes that had died before destocking were consistent with a paramyxoviral infection. Using “next-generation” sequencing, a novel paramyxovirus was discovered and phylogenetic analysis of this paramyxovirus identified it as a distant relative of the ferlaviruses (sometimes formerly referred to as ophidian paramyxovirus, or OPMV).1 This new paramyxovirus was tentatively named Sunshine virus, after the geographical location of the first isolate. Since then, PCR testing for this virus has been developed at Murdoch University, Western Australia, and has been successfully used to detect Sunshine virus in cloacal swabs, oral swabs, combined cloacal-oral swabs, brain, lung, liver, kidney, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded archival tissues and blood cells. We describe evidence of haematological and cutaneous disease, associated with Sunshine virus infection that emerged in a group of captive pythons.

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