New evidence emerges in sardine mortality investigation [SOUND]

 # The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment announced that laboratory sequencing has confirmed that pilchard herpesvirus genetic material is present in sampled sardines. The department’s Janet Coetzee says the virus was detected in both dead sardines and, at lower levels, in some apparently healthy sardine collected from the West Coast. She says the virus has not previously been reported in South African sardines. She adds it was associated with two large-scale sardine mortality events in Australasia during the 1990s: