ISA virus mutates

 Odd Grydeland odd@fishfarmingxpert.com

While environmentalists and other anti- salmon aquaculture activists are all up in arms about the idea that some virus-containing fish may end up on someone’s dinner table, government agencies are not concerned. The same goes for fears that a mutated version of the virus will wreak additional havoc with the region’s wild Atlantic salmon stocks. Given the fact that a two-liter bottle of seawater contains more virus than there are people on Earth (University of Delaware), chances are that any consumption of marine-sourced seafood involves the inadvertent consumption of some virus particles. And like the ISA virus, most of the viruses found in seafood are totally harmless to humans. As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports, a salmon farm in the District of Shelburne in Nova Scotia was recently cleared from a previous bout with the ISA virus; The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has cleared the first Nova Scotia aquaculture site to be hit by an outbreak of infectious salmon anemia but say a new strain of the deadly fish virus has been detected. Last week, federal authorities lifted a quarantine imposed on a Shelburne salmon farm operated by New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, salmon with the virus are safe to consume and the virus and its mutated cousin pose no risk to human health. The CFIA confirmed the ISA problem was resolved through a mass salmon slaughter, rigorous pen cleanings and a period where the facility was shut down. A report submitted earlier this week by Dr. Brian Evans, the Canadian delegate to the World Organization for Animal Health and CFIA’s former chief veterinary officer, stated a genetic mutation in the deadly salmon virus was detected in the infected Shelburne samples. Dr. Roland Cusack, Nova Scotia’s fish veterinarian, said the effects of mutated virus are the same. “It’s a change in shape but otherwise it’s the same as any other type of ISA,” said Cusack. “[It’s not] more dangerous to the fish.”