Aquatic Animal HealthFish Health
With over 30,000 species globally, fish are critical to diverse and healthy aquatic environments occupying trophic positions across the food web and forming the basis of multiple major fishery and aquaculture industries. With the world demand for protein increasing there is a drive to domesticate new species, and exploit new production regions. For this, farmed fish can be traded live and are often translocated for on-growing in new locations, including across international borders. Given their potential to host a wide variety of organisms from microbes to metazoans, alongside this mobility, emergent diseases have become a frequent feature in the global production industry. Cefas has a long history in the detection, description, diagnosis and control of fish diseases and has been a National Reference Laboratory in the discipline on behalf of UK Government for several decades. Our specialists apply their broad and in-depth technical expertise in microbiology, histopathology, and molecular biology for the detection, classification and reporting of novel fish pathogens. Our research work is applied to industry requirements as well as aligned with national and international policy needs to support protection of the aquatic environment in an era of growing international trade.
Fish Health Team
Richard Paley - Lead