New
Zealand scientists have found what appears to be a cure for the disease
that is responsible for wiping out many of the world's frog populations.
Chloramphenicol, currently used as an eye ointment for humans, may be a
lifesaver for the amphibians, they say.
The researchers found frogs bathed in the solution became resistant to
the killer disease, chytridiomycosis.
The fungal disease has been blamed for the extinction of one-third of
the 120 species lost since 1980.
Fearful
that chytridiomycosis might wipe out New Zealand's critically
endangered Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi), the researchers have been
hunting for a compound that would kill off the disease's trigger, the
fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.
They tested the
chloramphenicol candidate on two species introduced to New Zealand from
Australia:
the brown tree frog (Litoria ewingii) and the southern bell
frog (L. raniformis).