Detections of PD and ISA in Norwegian fish farms

The most serious fish diseases are those that trigger publicly imposed measures. Stopping outbreaks and preventing the spread of infection between fish farms is critical.

Pancreas Disease (PD) is commonly detected in Norwegian fish farms nearly every month of the year. PD negatively impacts the overall fish quality, causing higher feed conversion ratio (FCR)  and increased mortality. By week 29 this year, the number of all PD detections was 37% higher than in the same period last year (weeks 1-29). 

Fortunately, Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) outbreaks happens on fewer occasions. However, 2020 has seen a strong growth in ISA outbreaks. So far this year (weeks 1-29), there has been a fourfold increase in the number of ISA detections compared to the same period in 2019. There were 15 new sites with confirmed ISA virus and 5 sites are suspected, compared to 4 confirmed and 1 suspected the year before (weeks 1-29). 

The latest sites with detections of PD and ISA were holding salmon of 19G S1 and 19G S0 respectively, causing some additional harvesting mainly in July. The infected sites are geographically distributed all along the Norwegian coastline. Most likely, these fish groups will not to be a part of the harvest plan at this point and will probably contribute to a lower average weight of harvested biomass in Norway in the weeks to come. 

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Image: Alexander Raths via Shutterstock