Emerging infectious diseases in farmed shrimp cause significant welfare harm and industry losses, and integrated health management approaches are improving disease prevention and response.
Shrimp disease outbreaks represent welfare emergencies at enormous scale — mass mortality events affecting millions of animals within short timeframes. Whether shrimp experience the acute phase of fatal infectious disease as suffering in a morally relevant sense is uncertain, but the precautionary welfare perspective supports minimizing such events. Integrated health management that prevents outbreak occurrence is therefore the most welfare-positive approach, combining biosecurity to exclude pathogens, water quality management to maintain immune competence, nutritional support through probiotics and feed additives, and genetic improvement of disease resistance. This management approach aligns welfare and commercial interests directly, creating strong industry incentives for adoption that welfare-only motivations alone might not achieve.