Infectious disease is the most significant welfare and economic challenge in global shrimp aquaculture. Understanding disease dynamics and prevention approaches helps consumers evaluate industry sustainability claims.
Shrimp disease represents a massive welfare problem: outbreaks cause rapid mass mortality events where millions of animals die through acute illness. The suffering involved in viral and bacterial disease death — systemic infection, tissue destruction, immune failure — is difficult to quantify but likely significant given evidence of shrimp nociception. Crowding, poor water quality, and stress are both causes and consequences of disease — stressed shrimp have compromised immune function, making them more susceptible; disease causes further stress. Preventive approaches that reduce disease while improving welfare outcomes include lower stocking densities, biosecure water management, probiotic supplementation, and selective breeding for disease resistance. Antibiotic use to manage bacterial disease drives antimicrobial resistance — certified schemes increasingly restrict antibiotic use to therapeutic treatment of diagnosed infections only.