Two new vaccines for channel catfish may bring better health to this popular fish. And averting disease-related losses may enhance fish farmers' balance sheets—with possible savings for you at the fresh-fish section of your supermarket.Channel catfish rate as America's third-most-popular, domestically farmed fish.
ARS scientists in the USDA-ARS Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit, Auburn, Ala., and Chestertown, Md., developed the vaccines to protect fish against a disease known as columnaris, named for Flavobacterium columnare—the bacterium that causes it. Ranked as the second-worst disease of catfish, it also afflicts other species ranging from goldfish to largemouth bass to salmon. The microbe is harmless to humans.
The vaccines are apparently the first to contain a live, modified form of the bacteria, a feature that is generally regarded as providing more effective protection than vaccines containing killed bacteria.An added benefit: To administer either vaccine, fish farmers only need to place the fish in a tank containing a carefully measured amount of the vaccine. That option means less stress for the fish and less cost for the producers than injecting each fish with the vaccine.
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