OIE's Approach to Aquaculture Biosecurity       

Aquaculture is growing globally more rapidly than all other food-animal producing sectors, and international trade in live aquaculture animals and their products is increasing. Development of the aquaculture sector, particularly in developing countries, is key to meeting the growing global demand for food.

Disease outbreaks due to unsafe trade or other factors such as poor farm-level biosecurity continue to cause serious economic impacts and threaten the growth and sustainability of the aquaculture sector.

Implementation of effective biosecurity measures is critical in reducing the risk of introduction, establishment and spread of pathogenic agents to, from or within an aquatic animal population.

The main focus of disease control should always be prevention. Implementing biosecurity measures in aquaculture establishments can be simple and have a significant impact to growth. Biosecurity measures include controlling what is brought into the farm, disinfection of aquaculture establishments and equipment, fallowing, ensuring quality of feed, and handling, disposal and treatment of aquatic animal waste.

The OIE Aquatic Animal Health Code provides standards for the improvement of aquatic animal health worldwide.       Competent Authorities should use these standards to develop measures for early detection, internal reporting, notification and control of pathogenic agents in aquatic animals and preventing their spread via international trade in aquatic animals and aquatic animal products, while avoiding unjustified sanitary barriers to trade.

Biosecurity, a defined term in the Aquatic Code, is included in many of the Code chapters including the disease-specific chapters. The Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission (AAC) is responsible for overseeing the amendments to the Aquatic Code. With the support of Member Countries it agreed to develop a new draft chapter on Aquatic animal biosecurity for aquaculture establishments under Section 4 of the Aquatic Code. The new chapter will contain general principles on aquatic animal biosecurity, address disease transmission pathways, risk assessment, mitigation measures and components of a biosecurity plan.