Ireland: A dramatic insight into how white spot infects shrimp

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV), is one of the most virulent diseases to impact the shrimp aquaculture sector, and is estimated to cause 10 percent of the sector’s losses – equating to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. But the portal of entry into individual shrimp has kept researchers guessing – until now. It’s a mystery that Hans Nauwynck, a professor at Ghent University, has been puzzling over for over a decade. “White spot is known as ‘the killer’ – it kills infected shrimp within 72 hours and was one of the major issues in the shrimp sector, which is why we decided to direct our research there,” he explains. Previous research by Nauwynck’s group demonstrated that shrimp can neither be infected by immersion in water containing WSSV, nor by peroral inoculation – there was no obvious way for it to gain entry, either via the digestive tract or the cuticulum. “For me as a virologist this was the biggest question of my life – how do shrimp become infected?” he reflects. ...