A team of Thai scientists has developed a rapid test for Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS) in shrimps, which will save farmers of the shellfish from huge losses.
Tim Fregel, a researcher and adviser at the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Biotec), said the breakthrough was due to cooperation between Thai and Taiwanese researchers.
The test can detect the fatal AHPND bacteria in shrimps within three hours, a huge improvement on the current method which takes around three weeks.
Prof Fregel said the new test for AHPND bacteria decodes DNA collected from samples of sediment, shrimp food or shrimp tissue.
A comparison is then made to see if the DNA sequence matches that of the AHPND bacteria.
The current method not only takes longer, but is more complicated. It starts with collecting shrimp bacteria, cultivating them and releasing them to the shrimps, then waiting to see if they die.
If the shrimps die, an outbreak of AHPND bacteria can be confirmed.
"The longer we take to confirm an outbreak, the bigger the loss for the farmer, as they can't take preventive measures. The rapid test is both a precaution and a prevention against outbreaks," he said.
Since the EMS outbreak in 2012, Thai shrimp farming has halved in productivity, not due to shrimps dying, but because farmers cut investments to prevent losses.
EMS spread from China in 2009 to Vietnam by 2010, to Malaysia by 2011 and to Thailand by 2012. Efforts to control the spread of AHPND were hampered by the lack of specific and rapid detection methods.
The rapid test is 99% accurate so far. More research and development is needed before it is 100% accurate, Prof Fregel said.
The research team has been working on the test since 2011 with support from the Department of Public Health at Mahidol University, the Aquaculture Business Research Centre, the faculty of fisheries at Kasetsart University and Burapha University, and shrimp farmer clubs in the South.