Journal of Virology & Antiviral Research

Grijalva-Chon and Castro-Longoria, J Virol Antivir Res 2015, 4:1
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8955.1000e107
Journal of Virology &
Antiviral Research
Editorial
A SCITECHNOL JOURNAL
Viral Threats in Aquaculture: The
Battle Continues
J M Grijalva-Chon1*and R Castro-Longoria1
1Department of Scientific and Technological Research, University of Sonora,
Mexico
*Corresponding author: J.M. Grijalva-Chon, Department of Scientific and
Technological Research, University of Sonora, Mexico, Tel: Tel: 662-259-2169; Email: [email protected]
Rec date: March 23, 2014, Acc date: March 24, 2015, Pub date: March 27, 2015
Editorial
The growth of world population demands more food and in this
sense aquaculture has contributed, in recent years, to provide protein
of quality to supplement the insufficient contribution of fisheries.
Globally, the rate of increase in aquaculture production contrasts with
the stagnation of fisheries production. For example, in 2012 fish
production reached 158 million tons, of which aquaculture production
accounted for 42%. In the same year, global aquaculture (fish,
mollusks, crustaceans and others) produced 67 million tons generated
mainly (63%) in inland facilities [1]. But just as crop and livestock
production, aquaculture faces challenges with varying degrees of
difficulty, such as financing alternatives for poor farmers, adapting
new technologies developed in different regions, lack of qualified
training, and pathogens that threaten the health of animals raised in
aquaculture.
The globalizations of markets open up the necessary channels to
distribute aquaculture production and enterprising farmers profit
from it. However, the first steps of globalization of the aquaculture
markets were made with little or no regulation that would maintain
the natural boundaries of pathogens and avoid the spread of diseases
affecting species of interest for aquaculture. The game of Russian
roulette had begun and epizooties began to reduce crop production
since the 90s affecting different geographic areas in different times,
situation which has continued to this day.
The World Organization for Animal Health has created a list of
21 viruses that are of international concern and severely affect the
health of a large number of aquatic species [2]. Ten viruses are of
special concern to fish health, eight for crustaceans, two for mollusks
and one for amphibians. In the last two decades there are reports of
mass mortality events in major aquaculture species. For example,
Ostreid herpesvirus type 1 has been responsible for mass mortality
events in cultured spat and juvenile oyster in California [3,4] and
Europe [5]. Also in Asia, and around the same time, the presence of
the yellow head virus was reported with attacks of great severity in
shrimp farms [6,7]. This virus was confirmed in the American
Continent in 2006 [8] but without causing outbreaks due to a possible
resistance in shrimp acquired by previous contact with the Taura
syndrome virus [9].
Despite the severe regulations designed to prevent transboundary
movements of pathogens, it has not been possible to avoid severe
epidemics that have decimated the cultures around the world,
suggesting that pathogens have been established in wild populations
and reached the cultured species by vectors [10]. Therefore, a
consequence of the establishment in new geographic areas may be new
non-deleterious genome rearrangements, resulting new strains [11-13]
with unknown consequences in most cases. As a result, there are many
research routes in the field of aquatic virology, for example: a) What
kind of genomic rearrangements have occurred in pathogens
established in new geographic areas?, b) What is the consequence of
these arrangements on the infective power?, c) These arrangements are
related to the coupling of new hosts?, d) What is the feasibility of
successful use of iRNA to control infective process?, e) what is the
exact combination of environmental factors, health host, and viral
strain that trigger the viral lytic phase?, f) What are the implications of
co-infections?, g) Can metagenomics contribute to find an effective
control strategy? These and many other questions require great effort
and different study strategies given the great diversity of geographic
conditions, cultured species and viruses of interest.
References
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Citation:
Grijalva-Chon JM, Longoria CR (2015) Viral Threats in Aquaculture: The Battle Continues. J Virol Antivir Res 4:1000e107.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8955.1000e107
of a new OsHV-1 DNA strain in the healthy Pacific oyster,
Crassostrea gigas, from the Gulf of California. J Fish Dis 36:
965-968.
Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 1
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Bai C, Wang C, Xia J, Sun H, Zhang S, et al. (2015) Emerging and
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