Consuming farmed shrimp 'does not represent a risk', ensures Senasica

In addition, he indicated that there are currently about seven lines of research to determine the causal agent of early death of farmed shrimp.

"The shrimp that are affected died, those who got sick were slaughtered so the consumption of the commercial shrimp that is on the market does not offer problems of any kind. It is safe to eat it," Sanchez Cruz stressed.

The Senasica director explained that the disease has affected small shrimp, being 21 days, "which are not eaten", so that "there is no risk in the human consumption circuit with this disease, this one in particular, is not so."

On the other hand, he said the health emergency device is undergoing the publishing process, which aims to limit the product mobilizations and provide greater precision instruments to act and conclude the diagnosis.

Sanchez Cruz said it is suspected to be the early death syndrome (EMS), but "all the possible views are being investigated."

"We are working on about seven lines of research in order to arrive at a diagnosis. Meanwhile this happens, the most important method to stop the disease from spreading is to implement biosecurity measures, the hygiene measures of the farm," he said.

"Avoiding the mobilization, performing disinfection mechanisms and health gaps, which allow the farms that had already been affected by mortality and that are empty, which are in quarantine process, they may be subjected to a process of cleaning and hygiene so that they can then be restocked with shrimp without the presence of pathogens," stated the official.

For his part, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (Sagarpa), Enrique Martinez y Martinez, explained that these early deaths of shrimp are a recent problem in Mexico, which indicates another way of working in aquaculture must be sought.

"We have to find a solution at present and a fundamental solution," he pointed out.

On the other hand, Ricardo Pérez Enríquez, researcher at the Centre for Biological Research of the Northwest (Cibnor), noted that the shrimp harvest losses generated by the white spot were much higher than those reported recently.

"For 10 years work in the studio has been performed so as to mitigate the death of the shrimp caused by the white spot virus as much as possible because it is an issue that has generated millions in losses to the industry," Perez Enriquez ensured.

Sanchez Cruz stated that in Mexico the wild shrimp catch reaches from 16,000 to 22,000 tonnes a year while farm production exceeds 80,000 tonnes per year, reported Azteca Noticias.

Last April, the Government temporarily cancelled the import of tiger and white shrimp species from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, where the epidemic early mortality syndrome or acute necrosis syndrome of the hepatopancreas (AHPNS) was detected.