The aquatic animal pandemic crisis

Abstract

The growth of aquaculture over the past 50 years has been accompanied by the emergence of aquatic animal diseases, many of which have spread to become pandemic in countries or continents. An analysis of 400 emerging disease events in aquatic animals that were logged by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science between 2002 and 2017 revealed that more than half were caused by viruses. However, in molluscs, most events were parasitic. Categorising these events indicated that the key processes underpinning emergence were the movement of live animals and host switching. Profiles of key pathogens further illustrate the importance of wild aquatic animals as the source of new infections in farmed animals. It is also clear that the spread of new diseases through the largescale movement of aquatic animals for farming, for food and for the ornamental trade has allowed many to achieve pandemic status. Many viral pathogens of fish (e.g. infectious salmon anaemia, viral haemorrhagic septicaemia) and shrimp (e.g. white spot syndrome virus) affect a large proportion of the global production of key susceptible species. Wild aquatic animal populations have also been severely affected by pandemic diseases, best exemplified by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungal infection of amphibians, whose emergence and spread were driven by the movement of animals for the ornamental trade. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is now widespread in the tropics and subtropics and has caused local extinctions of susceptible amphibian hosts. Given the rising demand for seafood, aquacultural production will continue to grow and diseases will continue to emerge. Some will inevitably achieve pandemic status, having significant impacts on production and trade, unless there are considerable changes in global monitoring and the response to aquatic animal diseases.

First genetic characterization of sturgeon mimiviruses in Ukraine

“…It is now acknowledged that the movement of live aquatic animals is a key process in the emergence of viral pathogens (Feist, Thrush, Dunn, Bateman, & Peeler, 2019). For instance, a recent outbreak of Russian sturgeon mortality in Sweden was associated with the import of AcIV‐E (Axen et al, 2018).…”

Optimizing surveillance for early disease detection: Expert guidance for Ostreid herpesvirus surveillance design and system sensitivity calculation

“…As aquaculture evolves to meet global food security challenges, the resulting intensification and diversification of production systems may heighten the emergence and international spread of aquatic pathogens (Burge et al, 2014;Feist et al, 2019;King et al, 2019). Aquaculture must balance the pathogen risks inherent to natural settings with the costs and complexities of altered rearing environments that support their bioexclusion (Lafferty et al, 2015).…”

Vulnerabilities in aquatic animal production

“…It is evident that unregulated trade and the irresponsible transboundary movement of live aquatic animals and their products pose a serious risk for aquatic animal production, through the introduction of pathogens to new geographies and disease emergence (26). Examples of such diseases (27), which have seriously impacted global aquaculture production, include: white spot syndrome (WSS), Taura syndrome, koi herpesvirus disease (KHVD), epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) (28), infectious salmon anaemia (ISA), acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) (29), and tilapia lake virus (TiLV) disease (30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37).…”