Currently, aquaculture contributes for more than 40% to the total fish production and the market of aquaculture products is expected to grow significantly. Disease outbreaks are responsible for about 20% of the estimated financial losses in aquaculture production and can significantly endanger both consumers and the environment. The presence of potentially dangerous populations of microbial pathogens and parasites in the farmed fish waters is one of the main causes of the disease outbreaks and consequent losses.
To address the challenge of a sustainable European aquaculture industry by minimizing the threats associated with different pathogens, PREVINE proposes an environmental friendly and cost-effective innovative approach to prevent parasitosis and associated infections involving farmed fish. The proposed water disinfection strategy avoids any direct contact between a visible light-activated chemical agent and the fish; without releasing the disinfectant into the environment due to its association with a water-compatible and easily recoverable solid matrix.
 The PREVINE aims are: (a) to prevent the threats to the welfare of farmed fish, and consequent decrease in the quality and safety of food production; (b) to disinfect the fish-farming water by an innovative photobiological technique; (c) to establish a protocol for a successful preventive action against parasitoses and associated bacterial/fungal infections; (d) to minimize risks of toxicity to fish and damage to the environment; (e) to develop a disinfection protocol as the first stage of further technology development and field implementation strategies aiming to facilitate photo-decontamination of fish-farming water possible at low cost and low environmental impact.
The project will focus on important farmed fish species in Aveiro?s region, namely, seabass Dicentrarchus labrax. The target pathogens will be the bacteria Vibrio, Photobacterium damselae subsp. piscicida and Streptococcus sp.; the fungus Saprolegnia, the dinoflagellate Amyloodinium ocellatum, the larvae of the Isopoda Paragnathia formica, Praniza larvae and Anisakis a nematode which infects fish and marine invertebrates, including crustaceans and molluscs and triggering an allergic immune host response.