Fish Health Section

The Fish Health Section (FHS) of the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS) recently organized a webinar on fish parasitology. This was held virtually on 9 December 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand, and attended by around 339 participants from at least 20 countries around the world.  With the many aquatic animal disease problems affecting the aquaculture industry, fish parasites are often overlooked mainly because of their limited impacts on production compared to viral and bacterial diseases.  However, some of these parasites, if left uncontrolled, can also cause significant production losses or affect the marketability of harvested fish.  Thus, this webinar was undertaken to raise awareness on the importance of parasites on both farmed and wild fish populations, to understand their mechanisms of infestation (including their life cycle), as well as disease prevention and control.

Renowned fish parasitologists in the region and in the world were invited to talk on important parasites of freshwater and marine fishes.  Video recordings of the webinar are listed below:

• Opening Session
• "Parasites of Freshwater Fish" by Dr. Andy Shinn of Benchmark R&D in Thailand. Dr. Shinn is passionate about aquatic animal health, especially parasites and methods of their rapid, confident identification and detection, their taxonomy, their management and control in aquaculture systems through the use and development of an array of chemical and non-chemical regimes, and their impacts on their hosts.
• "Sea Lice on Cultured and Wild-caught Fishes in the Philippines? by Dr. Erlinda R. Cruz-Lacierda of University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) in the Philippines. Dr. Lacierda is a Professor at the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences of UPV where she teaches fish health management, fish histology and fish physiology. She also worked at the Aquaculture Department of Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center, mainly on diagnosis and control of fish parasites.
• "Neobenedenia: Can we Innovate to Successfully Manage this Parasite in Sea Cages?" by Dr. Susan Gibson-Kueh of James Cook University in Singapore. Dr. Kueh published the first reports of two important diseases of barramundi in the region, scale drop and big belly. Her current research is focused on the study of complex fish diseases (including parasites) to improve management strategies.
• "Marine Leech: From Life Cycle to Control Measures" by Dr. Kua Beng Chu of the Department of Fisheries (DOF), Malaysia. Dr. Beng Chu is currently the Director of the Fish Health Research Division at the Fisheries Research Institute of DOF Malaysia. She has been in-charge of research and development in fish health with focus on fish parasites including pathology, prevention, treatment and management.
• Closing Session