What Is Inclusion Body Disease?

What is inclusion body disease?

Inclusion body disease is an infectious disease of snakes caused by a type of arenavirus. This disease is also known as inclusion body disease (IBD) as several eosinophilic inclusions (90-120 nm in diameter) of proteins form in the tissues of infected snakes.

How does it affect snakes?

Inclusion bodies in snakes. — Cytoplasmic inclusions (orange spots shown by arrows) in IBD positive boas.

The disease usually affects the members of the family Boidae (boas) and Pythonidae (pythons). While both boas and pythons are affected by IBD, the way it affects them is different. In pythons, the inclusion bodies are generally found in the cells of the central nervous system (CNS) and in boas, the inclusion bodies are found in tissues throughout the body. The symptoms of mad snake disease in boas include regurgitation, looking upwards for an extended period of time, stomatitis and anorexia. The affected snakes also tie themselves in a knot by corkscrewing. The symptoms of IBD in pythons primarily include abnormal body posture and movement.

Pythons infected with IBD live much shorter and die more rapidly than boas infected with IBD. The infected boas, with supportive care, can live for months or even years after the symptoms start to show.

How is IBD treated?

IBD, unfortunately, does not have an effective treatment. Treatment usually includes general supportive care and antibiotics for secondary infections such as respiratory and oral infections. Even after all this support, it often does not guarantee improvement in health.

The last option that remains is euthanizing the suffering snakes.

Can IBD be prevented?

IBD is a difficult disease to prevent. There is hardly anything that can be done to prevent it. There is no vaccination for reptarenavirus.

However, some steps can be taken in order to stop its transmission. These steps could be:

Keeping snakes in a clean environment and making sure there are no snake mite infestations.
Checking new snakes brought to the captivity for IBD, quarantining them (3 months for pythons and 6-9 months for boas and other species of snakes) and then again testing them before releasing them.

Below is a video showing clips of IBD-infected snakes and explaining about the disease.