Countermeasures against viral diseases of farmed fish
Research on viral infections in aquaculture:
Farmed fish provide an increasing fraction of the human food supply, and are of major economic importance in many countries. As in the case of terrestrial agriculture, bringing together large numbers of animals of a single species (i.e., monoculture) increases the risk of infectious disease outbreaks, including viral infections. Aquaculture, in which farmed fish are kept at high population densities in close proximity with wild fish reservoirs, is ideal for the emergence of wild-type pathogens that exist benignly in local wild fish and/or the spreading of aquatic pathogens to wild fish that enter into or come into close proximity with net cages and with fish escaping from them. This paper provides a general review for the nonspecialist of viral diseases of farmed fish and how they could be prevented or treated