For those that are new to poultry keeping that don’t know what Aspergillosis “asper” is like myself when I started raising ducks and geese, Asper is a highly fatal opportunistic illness caused typically from inhailing spores or less often having them infect a wound... and the spores are everywhere, even in seemingly clean environments, you can’t really avoid them.
Typically it takes a weakened immune system to be susceptible to catching Asper, either from illness, antibiotics, chemo, or corticosteroids, but it is opportunistic, meaning it can infect an otherwise healthy host also, and birds aren’t the only ones susceptible to it, mammals, avians, reptiles are all equally susceptible, infact it’s lethal in 90% of humans who catch it.
Sometimes all it takes for a bird is to inhale dust kicked up from the wind while heat stressed on a hot day, or being stressed from moving, or stressed by a predator on a damp day. You can do everything to try to prevent Asper and sometimes it just doesn’t make a difference.
The worst part is how sneaky it is, often the infected show few or no symptoms until the infection is widespread through the body.
There are many antifungals that are prescribed to treat it, the most effective are Amphotericin B, itraconazole and Voriconazole. Some vets prescribe Fluconazole but Fluconazole doesn't appear to be effective in treating Asper. Typically when diagnosed with Asper the patient will be put on several antifungals in an attempt to combat the fungus as well as antibiotics to combat secondary infections and sadly in many cases it proves ineffective and often it just induces remission and the fungus infection returns at a later time.
Typically treatment of Asper is six months of taking multiple medications twice daily but depending on how persistent and widespread within the body the infection is it can be much longer.
The reason Asper is so difficult to treat is because current antifungals aren’t all that effective against Asper, some strains of Asper are even drug resistant, and what’s worse the drugs to treat it are toxic to the heart, liver, and kidneys, so the fungus isn't just damaging the organs, so is the treatment for the fungus.
For six years I never encountered a single illness in my duck and goose flock, I had a few sad losses to predators, birth defects, and one accidental poisoning “moonflowers” but never a real illness, not even a mild case of the sniffles, until my four year old ganderbaby Thor started coughing one spring day. I never knew why he got it, none of the others got it and he was generally healthy, but like I said, it’s an oportunistic illness. We fought it for around two years, he would go into remission only for his symptoms to reappear usually three or four months later. Eventually when it looked like the fungus was finally gone his heart was damaged and he passed away from heart failure. His body couldn’t take the stress of being ill for so long and being repeatedly poisoned in an attempt to stop the disease.
Since then I periodically research various illnesses that have appeared in my flock since, to see if there’s any new reasearch or treatments available and I stumbled on this one, a new drug in development for the treatment of fungal diseases including Asper called OLOROFIM.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32751765/
To sum up the findings so far Olorophim doesn’t appear to have many negative reactions in humans, even for people who took it regularly fror a year, the most noticable effect unless I missed something was dizziness, and olorophim eradicated the fungal infections where multiple long term doses of current antifungals could not.
The drug seems to be an effective treatment against Asper by inhibiting a key enzyme the fungus needs to survive, olorophim might even be able to be used as a preventative for Asper and some other fungal born illnesses.
Of course it hasn’t been tested in avians and so there’s no information on how it would effect the avian body for that reason, but many drugs are used off label in avians anyway so if it works as well as it appears to in humans, this could be a game changer for our feathered friends as much as it is for us!
I just wanted to share this here for anyone else interested in health news and emerging medicines that could improve the health of our birds, because this is an exciting one to keep an eye on as it develops!
Typically it takes a weakened immune system to be susceptible to catching Asper, either from illness, antibiotics, chemo, or corticosteroids, but it is opportunistic, meaning it can infect an otherwise healthy host also, and birds aren’t the only ones susceptible to it, mammals, avians, reptiles are all equally susceptible, infact it’s lethal in 90% of humans who catch it.
Sometimes all it takes for a bird is to inhale dust kicked up from the wind while heat stressed on a hot day, or being stressed from moving, or stressed by a predator on a damp day. You can do everything to try to prevent Asper and sometimes it just doesn’t make a difference.
The worst part is how sneaky it is, often the infected show few or no symptoms until the infection is widespread through the body.
There are many antifungals that are prescribed to treat it, the most effective are Amphotericin B, itraconazole and Voriconazole. Some vets prescribe Fluconazole but Fluconazole doesn't appear to be effective in treating Asper. Typically when diagnosed with Asper the patient will be put on several antifungals in an attempt to combat the fungus as well as antibiotics to combat secondary infections and sadly in many cases it proves ineffective and often it just induces remission and the fungus infection returns at a later time.
Typically treatment of Asper is six months of taking multiple medications twice daily but depending on how persistent and widespread within the body the infection is it can be much longer.
The reason Asper is so difficult to treat is because current antifungals aren’t all that effective against Asper, some strains of Asper are even drug resistant, and what’s worse the drugs to treat it are toxic to the heart, liver, and kidneys, so the fungus isn't just damaging the organs, so is the treatment for the fungus.
For six years I never encountered a single illness in my duck and goose flock, I had a few sad losses to predators, birth defects, and one accidental poisoning “moonflowers” but never a real illness, not even a mild case of the sniffles, until my four year old ganderbaby Thor started coughing one spring day. I never knew why he got it, none of the others got it and he was generally healthy, but like I said, it’s an oportunistic illness. We fought it for around two years, he would go into remission only for his symptoms to reappear usually three or four months later. Eventually when it looked like the fungus was finally gone his heart was damaged and he passed away from heart failure. His body couldn’t take the stress of being ill for so long and being repeatedly poisoned in an attempt to stop the disease.
Since then I periodically research various illnesses that have appeared in my flock since, to see if there’s any new reasearch or treatments available and I stumbled on this one, a new drug in development for the treatment of fungal diseases including Asper called OLOROFIM.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32751765/
To sum up the findings so far Olorophim doesn’t appear to have many negative reactions in humans, even for people who took it regularly fror a year, the most noticable effect unless I missed something was dizziness, and olorophim eradicated the fungal infections where multiple long term doses of current antifungals could not.
The drug seems to be an effective treatment against Asper by inhibiting a key enzyme the fungus needs to survive, olorophim might even be able to be used as a preventative for Asper and some other fungal born illnesses.
Of course it hasn’t been tested in avians and so there’s no information on how it would effect the avian body for that reason, but many drugs are used off label in avians anyway so if it works as well as it appears to in humans, this could be a game changer for our feathered friends as much as it is for us!
I just wanted to share this here for anyone else interested in health news and emerging medicines that could improve the health of our birds, because this is an exciting one to keep an eye on as it develops!
