Welcome to the community.
I am sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing. I had not heard of this in ball pythons, even though it’s a sad story is useful to know about.
I know you said it’s early days with knowledge about Nidovirus but are there certain symptoms / signs to look out for (other then just your snake seeming unwell) or where it is likely to come from or prevention techniques?
I’m inquiring info on Nidovirus from breeders I know both domestic and overseas but not much has come back. There are a few breeders discussing issues they’ve had on social media outlets. All I can say from my experience and the conversations I’ve had with our vet (which has treated other cases) most indications seem to start with respiratory problems. The problem with that is most respiratory infections are being treated with several injection treatments usually lasting about 27 days. Unfortunately, if your snake has the virus the rest of your collection is probably being infected. The only thing we can do right now is to learn as latest info comes in, question people you’re buying from if animal has been tested and ask for proof (vet bill or lab results), quarantine everything new or that seems ill and disinfect everything with a good disinfectant like F10 or diluted bleach.
There is some great info on Nido that’s easily digested in podcast format. I would suggest everyone listen Snakes And Stogies Episode 54. You might recognize one of the guests from this forum.
FishheadLabs is a good site to order an at home Nidovirus test kit. It’s fairly cheap and accurate. https://fishheadlabs.com/
Kit cost about $68 plus overnight shipping compared to about $120 for vet exam and nido test.
I will say that there is a lot of info out there, it is just that most of it is bad or uninformed.
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There are no viruses that are treated for with antibiotics. Antibiotics are used to treat bacteria and protists
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We actually have next to no real data on infectious spread, everything out there is supposition/speculation
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It infects and manifests clinical symptoms in many more species than this. There are representative cases across pretty much every python species as well as instances in colubrids, vipers, and boas. There are also turtle and lizard variants
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This is one of the issues I noted above regarding misinformation. An animal that tests positive is not necessarily an animal destined to die, and yet euthanasia seems to be the automatic ‘go to’ anytime someone gets a positive animal.
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I think you are mixing up pathogens here. Serpentovirus has primarily been an issue for (but not exclusive to) pythons. The disease most know for infecting boas is IBD
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As Ball notes
vvv
THP/S&S have done a few podcasts on this topic. MPR had a full panel discussion on it at one of the SE CarpetFests and that is also available online
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I highly recommend FishHead and the work that Pia has done
RAV is another option that I have heard recommended
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The bottom, and probably most important, line when it comes to serpentovirus is that the research on it is still very much in its infancy and that research has been vastly outpaced by the ease of testing. Add to the fact that this hobby, all to frequently dangerously overconfident of its understanding of science, has little to no grounding in the fields of virology, infections diseases, or epidemiology. Intelligent caution should be the route taken here. I strongly advocate testing and quarantine and increased hygiene and tight(er) biosecurity measures. I do not advocate scorched earth policies
A decent article for those interested:
I was going to say why don’t you just post a list of all the podcasts on it since you’re on all of them 
I would guess most of the readers here weren’t involved in the hobby back when Port City Pet was Port City Pythons. Joe is probably the most visible example in the hobby of someone who pretty much lost his entire collection to Nido. @t_h_wyman would know better but if I recall correctly it was a morelia variant that he was fighting.
I don’t think the importance of biosecurity can be stressed enough when buying new animals.
I mean… Thomas was already nice enough to have them all compiled so… 
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Joe is one of them. Pia and Cody would be another. Mike Curtin got hit hard too.
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This is still one of the unknows, but based on the info out there and my interpretation of it as someone in the field, I suspect that there are two major variants of serpentovirus that are problematic in the hobby. One seems to balls harder and the other hits Morelia harder
I thought IBD was caused by nidovirus, or is it caused by arenavirus. I remember there being concerns about nido for boas.
What would you normally treat viruses with? Some kind of antiviral medication? I’m assuming people have already tried looking for treatment. Would it be worth trying to treat an infected animal for experimentation purposes? Since the animal would likely be euthanized anyways I think it would be ethical.
Thomas sure is on top of stuff around here!
I had no idea. You don’t learn until you have a big collection, bio security is tough. Quarantine for most of us peons is going knock out mites, and show us any blatant issues. Anything big is probably going to slide right by. And once it’s in the room, good luck trying to slow or stop anything aggressive. Even if we know every possible vector, it would still be a huge task to control them all.
I worked with production birds before reptiles. The reptile hobby is lucky there aren’t more issues. Almost anything galliformes get is fast and mean.
IBD is a pseudo-arena. Or maybe proto-arena. Regardless, totally different branch of viruses than serpentovirus
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Vaccines or anti-virals. The prior are significantly more effective than the latter
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Not to any scientific level, though I know some people that have experimented on their own animals (not something I recommend)
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If set up as a valid scientific study, I see no issue in doing something like this. The problem is that there are no labs really doing research into this on that level. Not to mention I am not sure an IACUC would have the first clue how to set the guide-lines on it
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Pia and Cody’s outbreak was fairly well known within the chondro circles. And they have been very open sharing the information
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More and more I am leaning toward six month or longer Q time for anything I pick up. And I am trying to figure out a way that I can have a room for import animals I am working with. They will stay there permanently but any offspring I manage to generate will be able to transfer to the more centralized collection
Would vaccines help after an animal has the virus? I thought most vaccines were only to build antibodies, not treat an already infected animal.
Vaccines can be effective after the fact in some cases (rabies, chickenpox), but yes, are better as a preventative
Are those because the virus hasn’t fully established in the body? I thought that if the virus is already prevalent in large numbers, like nidovirus, the vaccines don’t help. Or do they tell the body to start making antibodies and that the virus is harmful before the body would normally figure that out itself.
I’m with you there. As long as that is, it’s still cheap insurance.
That’s a great idea! I may try to do something like this at my insulation warehouse since I don’t have any other snakes there anymore.
Different for each situation. With rabies, it is about getting the body to kick in to high gear before the virus can establish. With chickenpox, you get the vaccine to help prevent the virus from reactivating later in life as shingles
Yes. Unquestionably yes. And it’s all pythons.
You will find people refusing to screen, arguing against screening, making claims they can’t “test 200 hatchlings” (this is stupid), or that it isn’t in their part of the world - it is.
There are variants and we aren’t sure about species specific variants affecting cross species but most people will agree that BPNV is scary.
It is not difficult to avoid. Screen. Wash your hands. Isolate.
The so-called Ethical Keepers are the worst - they come up with rationalizations as to why they supposedly can’t get it and tell people it can be treated with lamps. It can’t.
On the flip side with the more traditional keepers you’ll hear it can’t be screened for. It can.
We’ve known all of this for years and no one wants to face it. At some point there is a possibility that this is going to start becoming endemic to captive pythons - much the same way that some researchers say IBD is to boas.
I have colubrids but this is awesome info, sorry for your loss!!!
Using the right kind of setup, it is absolutely possible to prevent spread/transmission using light. That said, few places are going to have the financial ability and know-how to be able to set this up.
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No one says it cannot be screened for, they say it is an undue financial burden to have to test. And, depending on the keeper, that may indeed be a factual statement. We all know that a huge portion of this hobby will gladly spend huge money on a specific morph and then turn around and go bargain basement on housing, set up, vet treatment, etc.
Just because it is an ugly fact does not change that it is a fact. And no matter how many times a more “privileged” subset of the hobby preaches quarantine and quarterly testing and twice annual vet checkups, you will not change the inertia of the majority without regulation. And that way lays a very slippery slope.