Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not an expert. I was just once a medic. I was also once a clinical laboratory technician long ago. These two professions do not qualify me medically in anyway shape or form. These are just my personal random thoughts.

Everyone is scared of IBD (Inclusion Body Disease). Everyone is scared of having their snake collections infected with this deadly disease. However, I feel that our understanding of this disease is still in its infancy. My personal opinion on the matter is that IBD is much like Aids. It is basically a symptom of something else. You cannot get Aids without first acquiring the virus that causes Aids which is HIV. A person can carry the HIV virus without necessarily getting full blown Aids. In much the same way, I feel that boas can carry whatever it is that causes IBD without getting full blown “IBD”. However, I also believe that is where the misunderstanding comes from. Everyone says that boas can be carriers of IBD. I feel this is wrong. First I feel that IBD (Inclusion Body Disease) is nothing more than a protein resulting from a boa’s reactions to an organism whether it be a bacterium or a virus. Second, I also feel that boas can produce these inclusion bodies as a reaction to several different microorganisms or infections. I agree that there is some type of microorganism out there that is deadly to boas and pythons. I just don’t feel it is called IBD.

As aforementioned, in my own personal and unprofessional and uneducated opinion, IBD is just a symptom and in a boa’s case, a reaction to several different infections which are not necessarily deadly. It is our job therefore, to find whatever it is that is causing our reptiles to be afflicted with the deadly form of the disease we have decided to collectively call “IBD”.

Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

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Ritchie Luna
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What you say sounds logical, but I have my doubts. Onset in pythons is so rapid that it seems likely that it is just a virus and boas just have more immunity due to evolutionary exposure. However, is this not also true that HIV alone in test tubes has shown no ill effects to human tissue, and it's been proposed a second virus may in combination with HIV be the onset of "AIDS?" I know that the feline infectious peritonitis disease in cats reminds me of the IBD situation/AIDS situation....every cat will have a titre count (exposure), but the cat is not said to "have FIP" until the count is above a certain level and an AIDS-type decline has began. Virtually everyone on the planet carries Pneumocystis virus without any ill effects, but it becomes deadly once your immunity is compromised....FIP is almost always in combination with other feline viri such as feline AIDS, feline leukemia, etc. In the wild often marmosets carry viri nonharmful to marmosets, but deadly to squirrel monkeys and vice versa...possibly one natural way of preserving territory and preventing invasive species and hybridazation, etc.