An emerging disease that is wiping out salamanders in portions of Europe could spread to the U.S. through international wildlife trade. University of Maryland amphibian expert Karen Lips says that steps need to be taken to curtail the spread of the disease.

The recently described fungus, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, has led to a sharp decline in wild populations of fire salamanders in the Netherlands. After the fungus was discovered in Europe last year, Lips joined with an international team of experts that tested over 5,000 amphibians from four continents.

Results from the testings, published October 31 in the journal Science, indicate that the fungus likely began in Southeast Asia 30 million years ago, reaching Europe through international trade in Asian newts, which are popular among amphibian fanciers.

After Lips and a colleague, Cornell University Professor Kelly Zamudio, screened nearly 1,400 frogs, salamanders, and news from sites around North and South America, they did not find any signs of the fungus, concluding that it has not yet reached the Americas. The fungus is deadly to at least a dozen European and North American salamander and newt species.

Chinese fire belly newts are potential carriers of B. salamandrivorans, and over 2.3 million of them were imported into the U.S. for pet trade between 2001 and 2009. UMD graduate student Carly Muletz, a co-author of the Science paper, said in a statement that even if just a small number of these newts have the fungus, “it’s a question of when, not if, this fungus reaches North America.”

According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the lethal fungus causes erosive skin disease and rapid mortality.