The technique developed by researchers at the Federal University of Ceará uses dehydrated and sterilized tilapia skin for burns.
The skin is rich in collagen that acts as a dressing on the burned area, helping to accelerate the healing and growth of new skin.
Snakes, jaguars and the famous Ant Eaters (tamanduás) who suffered severe burns during the devastating fires in the Pantanal are receiving treatment with Tilapia skin to hasten recovery of burned tissue.
The researchers took 130 biological dressings of tilapia to the Pantanal, which should allow the treatment of about 40 injured animals.
In Brazil, it is the first time that this technique has been used in wild animals, but the same group of researchers took the technique to veterinarians in California who treated bears injured in recent fires on the west coast of the United States.
A técnica desenvolvida pelos pesquisadores da Universidade Federal do Ceará usa pele de tilápia desidratada e esterilizada para tratar queimaduras Source: Viktor Braga/UFC
The treatment of the animals and the training of veterinarians was supported by a fundraising campaign called ‘Pantanal em Chamas’ organised by the NGO Ampara Silvestre.
Beatriz Odebrecht, a researcher and veterinarian at the Federal University of Ceará, contacted the NGO and made the university's skin bank available to treat animals injured by fires.
The Pantanal is experiencing the worst drought recorded in the last 60 years, according to Cemadem (National Center for Monitoring and Natural Disaster Alerts). A quarter of its area was consumed by fire, as shown in satellite images from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
