New fish vaccine developed
Vaccines and other fish health products have shown an ability to reduce losses of farmed fish like salmon due to the exposure to infectious pathogens like bacteria and viruses. A case in point is the reduction in the use of antibiotics by the Norwegian salmon farming industry, at the same time that the production levels have increased in leaps and bounds.
While there is still a lot of unanswered questions about this development, this announcement issued today by the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that a new vaccine product made to immunize fish from infectious diseases has been patented in the United States commands further investigation;
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) announced Monday the success of one of its teams in discovering new vaccine to increase the resistance of farmed fish against fungal or bacterial infectious diseases. "A patent for the new product was registered, by the name of Kuwait, in the United States," KISR Director General Naji Al-Mutairi said in a press release, adding that KISR team also invented a new method for producing this vaccine. He stated that the vaccine has been tried on several kinds of fish and proved effective in helping fish develop natural immunity against parasites and harmful bacteria and prevent the spread of the infections in water ponds. He underlined the importance of the new vaccine in combating and preventing fish infectious disease without endangering the health of the end consumer. "The new invention gives another example of the role of KIRS scientific researches in serving humanity and offering practical solutions to preserve environment and health," Al-Mutairi said.
He pointed out that the marketing department would try to promote the new product in local and international markets with the help of private sector partners. Al-Mutairi argued that although fish farming has great development potential, fish diseases still remain a major constraint to its successful expansion. "Bacteria and parasites can cause the death of 90 percent of fish in farms and consequently lead to huge financial losses, thus using these vaccines is important to save the fish farming industry." The water ponds in farms can stress the fish due to high stocking densities, reduced oxygen levels, sub-optimal water quality and high pathogen loads. Therefore, farmed fish have an increased susceptibility to infectious diseases. Such diseases may be bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic in origin. In the recent years, vaccination proved to be one of the best alternatives to combat bacterial and viral diseases
