Updated at 2:48 p.m., Thursday, April 5, 2007
Kahuku shrimp farm follow-up tests negative for virus
Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Follow-up test results on Ming Dynasty Fish and Shrimp Co. are negative for the Taura syndrome virus (TSV), which is not harmful to humans. The negative test results issued by the Aquaculture Pathology Laboratory at the University of Arizona-Tucson were from shrimp that were being raised in a second pond and the hatchery.
Agriculture Department officials said today the order preventing Ming Dynasty Fish and Shrimp Co. from moving shrimp on or off the property without a permit will remain in effect until cleanup procedures and some additional testing have been completed at the farm.
Ming Dynasty Fish and Shrimp's farm is the only one in the Kahuku area that participates in the Aquaculture Development Program's shrimp surveillance and certification program, which certifies farms as "specific pathogen free."
Initial surveillance tests conducted in mid-March at the farm were positive for TSV, but appeared confined to one pond. Shrimp in that pond was harvested.
TSV is deadly to certain types of shrimp, but not harmful to humans.
TSV was first identified in 1992 in Ecuador, near the mouth of the Taura River and since then outbreaks of the virus have occurred in other South American countries, Mexico, Asia, Florida and Texas. In 1994, an outbreak of TSV occurred at an aquaculture farm in Kahuku and killed more than 95 percent of the farm's shrimp. The source of the outbreak in 1994 was never determined, but disinfection efforts appeared to have been successful.
