In collaboration with researchers in Australia and Panama, Indian scientists have verified the new test that reliably detects chytrid in infected countries.
Chytridiomycosis, or “chytrid”
- For the past 40 years, a devastating fungal disease has been ravaging frog populations around the world, wiping out 90 species.
- “Panzootic”, which is also a pandemic in the animal world, is the world’s worst wildlife disease.
- Recently published in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, a multinational study has now developed a method to detect all known strains of this disease, caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus.
- Chytridiomycosis, or “chytrid” for short, has driven severe declines in over 500 frog species and caused 90 extinctions, including seven in Australia.
- The extreme rate of mortality, and the high number of species affected, makes chytrid unequivocally the deadliest animal disease known to date.
- Chytrid infects frogs by reproducing in their skin. The single-celled fungus enters a skin cell, multiplies, then breaks back out onto the surface of the animal.
- Chytrid originated in Asia. It’s believed that global travel and trade in amphibians led to the disease being unwittingly spread to other continents.
