Pacheco's disease Pacheco's disease Pacheco's disease is an acute and often lethal infectious disease in psittacine birds. The disease is caused by a species of herpesvirus, Psittacid alphaherpesvirus 1 (PsHV-1), which consists of four genotypes. Birds which do not succumb to Pacheco's disease after infection with the virus become asymptomatic carriers that act as reservoirs of the infection. These persistently infected birds, often Macaws, Amazon parrots and some species of conures, shed the virus in feces and in respiratory and oral secretions. Outbreaks can occur when stress causes healthy birds who carry the virus to shed it. Birds generally become infected after
Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia establish the Bureau of Animal Industry, set up in 1884 to eradicate the disease, which it succeeded in doing by 1892. Louis Willems, a Belgian doctor, began pioneering work in the 1850s on animal inoculation against the disease. The bacteria are widespread in Africa, the Middle East, Southern Europe, as well as parts of Asia. It is an airborne species, and can travel up to several kilometres in the right conditions. Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia came to Australia on a shipment of five head of cattle from England in 1858, imported by one of Melbourne's earliest settlers Mr Boadle. Three weeks