December 17, 2013 — Early Mortality Syndrome has caused Thai shrimp production to fall by about 40 percent. It's also hit China and Vietnam. Scientists have found the bacteria, but they don't know how to stop it.
When US researcher Donald Lightner discovered what was causing Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS) earlier this year, there was a huge sigh of relief at many of Asia's biggest prawn farms. First discovered in China in 2009, within two years EMS had spread to Vietnam and Thailand, the world's biggest exporter of shrimp.
Many farmers saw much of their harvest wiped out and became increasingly unwilling to repopulate their ponds.
Lightner identified the pathogen responsible, a unique strain of the Vibrio parahaemolyticus bacterium.
His team at the University of Arizona is one of several groups now working to find where the bacterium is hiding.
In Thailand, the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) is also working to eradicate the disease.
"That bacteria lives everywhere in the tropical marine environment," says BIOTEC's Professor Tim Flegal."The ones that are causing this problem don't do anything to humans, they just get the shrimp."
Read the full story at Deutsche Welle