A friend who assiduously documents Bonaire's dive sites, David Howell, posted a video snippet showing a coral head infected with SCTLD and treated with amoxicillin paste. David advises that the video is from the Cliff dive site; it's in the "Bonaire for Divers" group.
I ran a couple of searches and found the attached article, published in late August, documenting results of a study of coral heads treated with the amox paste. If is sufficiently science-y that I skipped to the conclusion, which is that "we observed evidence of a reversal in immune and metabolic responses related to disease exposure when corals were treated with amoxicillin, suggestive of a recovery process occurring at the host level. The strong impacts of antibiotic treatment on coral transcription, both in terms of a return to ‘healthy’ levels, and in some cases promotion of immune activation beyond levels seen in healthy controls, are suggestive of direct benefits of antibiotic exposure to the coral host."
STINAPA has also posted a brief update about the effectiveness of the amox treatment, asserting 99% effectiveness (but also noting that 60-100% of brain corals are infected). It's on Stinapa's FB page.
Of course, only an infinitesimal fraction of corals affected with SCTLD can be treated, considering the range of the disease. But perhaps the observations of robustness of the treated corals around Bonaire will make a larger difference, and at a minimum these findings will support further scientific work.
I ran a couple of searches and found the attached article, published in late August, documenting results of a study of coral heads treated with the amox paste. If is sufficiently science-y that I skipped to the conclusion, which is that "we observed evidence of a reversal in immune and metabolic responses related to disease exposure when corals were treated with amoxicillin, suggestive of a recovery process occurring at the host level. The strong impacts of antibiotic treatment on coral transcription, both in terms of a return to ‘healthy’ levels, and in some cases promotion of immune activation beyond levels seen in healthy controls, are suggestive of direct benefits of antibiotic exposure to the coral host."
STINAPA has also posted a brief update about the effectiveness of the amox treatment, asserting 99% effectiveness (but also noting that 60-100% of brain corals are infected). It's on Stinapa's FB page.
Of course, only an infinitesimal fraction of corals affected with SCTLD can be treated, considering the range of the disease. But perhaps the observations of robustness of the treated corals around Bonaire will make a larger difference, and at a minimum these findings will support further scientific work.
