Salmon producer AquaChile said on Friday that it has discovered the presence of the ISA virus, which is potentially deadly for the fish, at one of its pens in Chile’s southern Aysen region.
AquaChile and Sernapesca, Chile’s government fisheries body, are testing the pen to confirm the presence of the virus, which in 2007 devastated the national farmed-salmon industry, killing more than half of all fish.
Sernapesca said no fish deaths have been associated with ISA at AquaChile’s pen. It added that the last deadly outbreak of ISA was in Nov. 2015 in Chile’s Aysen region.
Chile’s salmon industry, the second largest in the world behind Norway, is still reeling from an algal bloom in March that killed up to 20 percent of the domestic farmed salmon.
Source: REUTERS
