Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease, formerly called early mortality syndrome, devastates shrimp farms globally and the welfare of affected shrimp and the farms that rely on them requires prevention-focused management.
Shrimp disease welfare, including AHPND, raises the same precautionary welfare questions as other shrimp health issues: given uncertainty about shrimp sentience, mass mortality events that cause rapid physiological deterioration may involve welfare harm at a scale that warrants serious consideration. At the production system level, disease prevention through better water quality management and biosecurity protects both shrimp welfare and farmer livelihoods, aligning individual and systemic welfare with economic sustainability. The resistance to antibiotic treatment that has developed in Vibrio bacteria associated with AHPND means that prevention through probiotic supplementation, water treatment, and biosecurity is the most effective management approach regardless of welfare motivation. Farms with robust disease prevention programs achieve better welfare outcomes by reducing the frequency and severity of mass mortality events.