Disease is a major welfare and production challenge in aquaculture, driving significant antibiotic use in some regions while vaccine development has largely replaced antibiotics in others. Understanding disease management approaches is essential for welfare-conscious seafood choices.
Aquaculture disease management illustrates how welfare and sustainability can align with good economic outcomes. Norway's near-elimination of antibiotic use in salmon farming through comprehensive vaccination demonstrated that disease prevention is superior to treatment on all dimensions simultaneously: fish experience less disease suffering, antibiotic resistance risk is reduced, and production costs fall. The contrast with regions that rely heavily on antibiotics shows that this outcome is not inevitable — it requires investment in vaccine development, infrastructure, and management change. From a welfare perspective, preventing disease through vaccination, biosecurity, and genetic resistance is preferable to treating established infections that have already caused suffering. Fish welfare in aquaculture is therefore advanced most effectively by investment in disease prevention rather than disease treatment.