Re: [RML] Disease

Adrian R. Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 05:46:54 +1000

At 19:22 8/02/98 -0500, Denise wrote:
>Yes, DVM is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and I work for a tropical fish
>wholesaler in the U.S.
>
>_Mycobacterium_ is widely spread here too among many tropical fishes and
>others. There was an incident last summer in which a red drum re-stocking
>program had a small percentage of fish infected with mycobacteriosis. The
>media had a field day intimating that there was a significant chance for
>human infection from such a disease. Not that it can't happen, for it can,
>though the zoonotic potential is quite low. Those of us in the business now
>use the term nontuberculous mycobacteriosis instead of "fish TB."

All live fish coming into Australia have to go through a 2 week quarantine
period. However according to a reliable source many of these fish are coming
out of these quarantine establishments grossly infected with mycobacteria. A
percentage of them die in the retailers tanks and the rest are sold to the
unsuspecting public. I would hazard a guess that if samples were taken from
retail pet stores that most of them would return a positive test for
mycobacteria.

Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
"Home of the Rainbowfish"
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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