Thai Silk Industry Faces ‘critical’ Pandemic

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Thai silk industry faces ‘critical’ pandemic

KHON KAEN: -- The Thai silk industry has been plunged into crisis by widespread outbreaks of the devastating pebrine disease, a leading entomologist warned today.

Caused by a protozoan parasite, pebrine is know as the worst disease to affect silkworms, slowing down their development and decimating production.

Although the disease was first discovered in Thailand two decades ago, a lack of understanding and interest in the condition has put Thailand’s silk industry into jeopardy.

Mrs. Siwilai Sirimangkhararat from Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Agriculture, who has carried out research into the silk industry since the year 2000, revealed today that the disease was now widespread among silkworm-rearing communities, and that in many areas in the country's Northeast 100 percent of silkworm colonies were affected.

With silkworm farmers paying little attention to the disease, which does not produce any outward symptoms in the worms, the parasite is rapidly spreading.

Warning of a crisis facing the Thai silk industry, Mrs. Siwilai said that of the nation’s estimated 150,000 silkworm farmers, only a handful had any knowledge of the disease.

She urged both the private and the public sectors to sit up and take notice of the pandemic, to study the disease seriously and to put in place urgent control measures.

--TNA 2005-04-20