Poverty alleviation through prevention and future control of the two major socioeconomically-important pathogens in Asian aquaculture.

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Recent estimates predict that the global population will rise to ~ 9 bn by 2050. Of that growth, the majority is predicted to take place within Africa, the Middle East and throughout Asia. As the available land for agriculture becomes limited and as wild fish stocks become depleted, it is essential that aquaculture production is sustainably enhanced to ensure global food security and poverty alleviation for all human kind. Infectious disease outbreaks are the key limiting factor to the sustainable expansion of the aquaculture industry. Many diseases exist in wild populations but only become problematic when crop species are held at high densities and under stressful conditions. These conditions are often associated with aquaculture. Attempts have been made to meet the challenge of disease by developing vaccines or prophylactic treatments to prevent disease or 'boost' the host immune system. Unfortunately, in the many cases in Asia these strategies have failed; vaccines have proved ineffective, too expensive, or are unrealistic to administer at farm scale. Immune stimulants and probiotics have often failed to provide consistent or sustained protection in shellfish. We argue that the approach to disease prevention must be radically rethought.We do concede that regulating the culture environment alone will be insufficient to reduce the impact of all future diseases. We also advocate the continued development of novel understanding of the fundamentals of host-pathogen interactions. This knowledge will identify pathways of pathogen infection that could be exploited in the future leading to the development of more universal and cost-effective control methods.We will quantify the socioeconomic impact of two key diseases of Asian aquaculture. This will inform the design of experiments to quantify the role of the pond environment (e.g.: temperature, salinity, diet, etc) in regulating the occurrence of infectious outbreaks. Outputs will be used to recommend novel Best Management Practice (BMP) for farmers in Low Income Countries (LICs). Through collaborative engagement, these new BMPs will be developed within the farming communities in Bangladesh and India to ensure their efficacy. The proposed approach represents a more economically realistic option for farmers working in LICs and will provide a first step towards poverty alleviation through minimising risk. We believe that this raised awareness of controlling environment quality to minimise disease has the potential to generate highly significant short term positive impacts.Simultaneously, we will use state of the art molecular methods to develop rigorous new understanding of the host-pathogen interactions in these diseases and use that knowledge in future projects to identify novel universal and sustainable intervention methods and for genetic improvement programmes for high health crops.Likely targets for our research are the current most socioeconomically devastating diseases in Bangladesh and India: White Spot Disease (WSD) of shrimp, which is caused by White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV), and infection with the fungus-like oomycete Aphanomyces invadans (previously Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS)) causing large-scale mortalities of farmed fish, especially major carps. Minimising the risk of these disease outbreaks under farm conditions in Bangladesh and other LICs is thus a vital short term priority. We therefore propose that there is an essential and urgent requirement to optimise novel approaches to good BMP. Our trilateral consortium will facilitate real cross fertilization of expertise and ideas and will build scientific and aquaculture capacity in the three countries presented. We genuinely believe that our collaboration will support the sustainable enhancement of the aquaculture industry and alleviate poverty by developing a holistic view of the importance of a healthy and resilient aquaculture crop and culture system.