1National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682 016, India.
2Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology and Biochemistry, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682 016, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) is a global scourge in shrimp culture systems where the virus spreads by both vertical and horizontal modes of transmission. A wide range of aquatic fauna has been surveyed and recorded as potential carriers of the virus, some of which could transmit the virus to shrimps in culture systems. In the present study we sampled a variety of crustaceans, finfishes, insects, molluscs and polychaetes coexisting in 19 Penaeus monodon culture systems spread over three districts of Kerala. A nested PCR detection tool was used to detect the presence of WSSV in these animals and attempted to correlate it's presence to crop success/failure in the farms sampled. We detected WSSV in Etroplus maculatus, Macropodus cupanus, Hageneus sp. and Neries sp., in whom the presence of the virus is hitherto unreported. Additionally, our results show that presence of WSSV-positive wild crustaceans such as shrimps and crabs in P. monodon culture systems is a significant threat to crop success than the commonly present fishes such as Etroplus maculatus, Macropodus cupanus, Hageneus sp.
