For the country’s shrimp industry anxiously watching Southeast Asian countries being hit by a new disease, the Early Mortality Syndrome, the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture (RGCA)-organised lecture series on emerging diseases and bio-security has come as an eye opener.
The Early Mortality Syndrome or the Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Syndrome (AHNS) that had its origin in Southern China in 2009, had spread to Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand in 2012, bringing the threat close to home.
So, when the who’s who of the shrimp industry and academia in aquaculture and pathological studies gathered in full strength at the Sirkazhi campus of the centre on Thursday, it was to hear firsthand from the man – Dr.Donald Lightner – the successful unravelling of a disease that had remained elusive for long. Donald V.Lightner, Professor and Director, OIE Reference Laboratory for Crustacean Diseases, School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Science, University of Arizona, spoke on the trajectory of research on the pathogen that ‘colonized’ shrimp’s stomach.
