Aquaculture America 2020

February 9 - 12, 2020

Honolulu, Hawaii

ASSESSMENT OF TRANSMISSION RISK IN WSSV-INFECTED SHRIMP Penaeus vannamei UPON COOKING

Luis Fernando Aranguren Caro1*, Hung N. Mai1, Joshua Lin1, Linda Nunan1, and Arun K. Dhar1
Aquaculture Pathology Laboratory
School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences
University of Arizona, 1117 E Lowell St. Tucson, Arizona, USA, 85721
 *lfarangu@email.arizona.edu
 

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) has been a threat to global shrimp industry since it was discovered in Taiwan in 1991. The economic impacts of WSSV has  now  surpassed over $15 billion globally.  Thus,  major shrimp importing countries around the world have enacted regulations to prevent further spread of  WSSV in those countries  through  imported  and potentially virus containing commodity shrimp . Recently, cooked shrimp  originating in WSSV-endemic areas has turned out to be positive for WSSV by PCR. However,  as of now,  there is no  published report describing the  risk of WSSV transmission via  cooked shrimp.  We, therefore, conducted a study to evaluate the infectivity of cooked WSSV-infected shrimp.  Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei ) known to be infected with WSSV  was cooked  at a boiling temperature for  1, 3, 5, 10 and 30 minutes, respectively.  Uncooked shrimp  (i.e. 0 min exposure to boiling temperature)  served as a positive control. After cooking, the cooked shrimp was  used to experimentally infect SPF  P. vannamei  shrimp  through  an oral feeding at 5% of the biomass of the tank. The data from  experimental  challenge  showed that while animals  from 0-minute treatment  (Positive control) tested positive  for  WSSV by qPCR and H&E histology , animals from 1, 3, 5, 10 and 30-minute treatments were  negative for  WSSV. Mortality data confirmed that only 0-minute treatment displayed acute mortalities,  in contrast ,  100%  survival  was recorded in SP F shrimp challenged using cooked shrimp  exposed to boiling temperatures at  1, 3, 5, 10 and 30 min.  These finding suggested that cooking shrimp at boiling temperature for at least 1 minute can prevent  the risk of  WSSV transmission to healthy shrimp .