200,000 fish killed after disease outbreak

Lingalaks received confirmation last week that its salmon at Kvinnherad in Western Norway had the disease.

“Although the fish were clinically ill we never suspected this disease,”  Lingalaks spokesman Kjetil Hestad told fishfarmingexpert’s sister publication, kyst.no.

Increased mortality

The company got the bad news about ISA after Pharmaq Analytiq AS detected the virus through A-samples.

“We had suspected that the fish were sick when we saw increased mortality since April. We have closely followed the fish health since then, but it was only yesterday that we got the ISA detection,” Hestad told kyst.no last week.

The company stocked the site with 208,847 in April 2016. They had reached an average weight of 2.7kg. According to Hestad the fish were not vaccinated against ISA, but with Alpha Ject Micro 6 and Compact PD. They have not yet concluded how the disease originated.

Limit infection

“We have no idea where the virus comes from. We hope to find out. The most important thing now is that we limit the infection as the disease does not spread,” he said.

“The situation leads to significant losses for the company,” he added, without wanting to put a figure on the financial damage yet.

ISA was last detected in western Norway in May 2015, approximately 20 km away as the crow flies.

Lingalaks was founded in 1978 with 5,000 salmon and home-made farming facilities. It now has production sites in Kvam, Kvinnherad and Radøy municipalities, produces about 11,000 tons a year and employs almost 40 people.

Scotland has had two outbreaks of ISA, in 1998-99 and 2008-09, both of which were successfully eradicated.