Major bacterial diseases in aquaculture and their vaccine development

Aquaculture is emerging as the fastest growing food-producing industry in the world because of the increasing demand for food fish consumption. However, the intensive culture of food fish has led to outbreaks of various bacterial diseases, resulting in annual economic losses to the aquaculture industry estimated at billions of dollars worldwide. Feeding infected fish with antibiotic-medicated food is a general practice but has led to antibiotic resistance development in bacterial pathogen, resulting in a higher dose requirement for effective control, a matter of increasing public concern. Therefore, alternatives to antibiotics that give similar or enhanced protection to aquatic animals are urgently needed. Various vaccines have been developed recently to combat bacterial diseases in aquaculture. The purpose of this review is to summarize the major bacterial pathogens in aquaculture and the development of vaccines as alternatives to antibiotics to protect aquatic animals from these bacterial diseases.