Two captive Australian pythons, one carpet and one diamond python, presented with signs of central nervous system dysfunction. The carpet python was agitated. Its head was tilting and it was incoordinated and had convulsions. It was treated with antibiotics and anthelmintics but was eventually euthanased after failing to respond to therapy. The diamond python had flaccid paralysis of the caudal half. It was not treated and became disoriented and died. Hepatocytes from both pythons contained irregular 2 to 10 micron eosinophilic intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies. The brain of the diamond python was not available for examination. Occasional neurones in the carpet python brain contained similar inclusion bodies and other changes suggestive of viral infection. The clinical signs and histopathological findings in both pythons were consistent with boid inclusion body disease.
Knight et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY 4.0., which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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