OYSTER HERPESVIRUS - FRANCE
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Date: Fri 23 Dec 2011
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg report [edited] <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/22/MNTM1MFSI7.DTL>
[A man] listens for the tell-tale death rattle at his oyster farm in France's Arcachon Bay, as a falling tide exposes victims of a lethal virus ravaging the nation's 157-year-old shellfish industry.
"You smell a particular odor and you hear the sound of shells," [the 33-year-old says,] sorting baby oysters in a wooden shack near the end of a 12-mile [20 km] sandbar that shelters the bay from the Atlantic Ocean west of the city of Bordeaux. "A putrid smell. Nobody understands it."
A herpes virus has decimated oysters along France's 3410-mile [5500 km] coast for a 4th season, making the shellfish an ever-more exclusive treat for year-end holiday meals that account for half of the country's oyster sales.
Farm-gate prices for oysters have jumped 65 percent in 3 years because of the disease, said Goulven Brest, head of France's shellfish-growers committee. He frets that high prices, which help keep growers afloat, and fewer oysters threaten an industry with USD 823 million in sales in 2009.
"The consumer is losing interest in the product because we have less to market," Brest said. "We can't charge more. We've reached a price beyond which demand will plummet."
Retail prices for oysters in Paris have climbed to between USD 18.25 and USD 22 a dozen in some neighborhoods, from USD 15.65 and USD 18.25 a dozen in 2010, he said. Wholesale prices in October 2011 climbed 8.2 percent from a year earlier and 26 percent from 2 years ago [2009], according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies in Paris.
The disease killing France's Pacific oysters, dubbed "la mortalite" by growers, first emerged in 2008. It mostly strikes oysters under a year old, researchers say.
Between 70 and 80 percent of France's young stock died this year [2011], according to the institute.
[Byline: Rudy Ruitenberg]
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ProMED-mail
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[Herpes-infected shellfish are not new to science. In 2008, a huge increase in mortality rates was detected in France. Then, a new variation -- more virulent -- of the virus was detected and named
OsHV-1 microvar. Like the other strains of herpes that affect mollusks, OsHV-1 microvar attacks young oysters during breeding season, when the mollusks' bodies investing most of their resources on reproduction and very little on maintaining their immune system.
Clinical signs of the disease may include high levels of mortality particularly affecting juvenile stages of Pacific oysters. These signs usually appear when water temperatures exceed 16 deg C (61 deg F).
This disease is not a threat to vertebrates, including humans.
Portions of this comment were extracted from <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100806-oyster-herpes-global-warming-climate-change-science/>.
- Mod.PMB
A HealthMap/ProMED-mail map can be accessed at:
<http://healthmap.org/r/1oxc>]
[see also:
Oyster herpesvirus - New Zealand 20110223.0591 2010
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Oyster herpesvirus - New Zealand 20101203.4337 Oyster herpesvirus - Netherlands 20100910.3259 Oyster herpesvirus - England, Ireland: emerging, OIE 20100817.2858] .................................................sb/pmb/mj/ll
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