Biosecure KOI Dossier

“No system of testing and disease prevention by exclusion is ultimately as effective as a vaccination process.”
The above is one of the stupidest things I have heard!
Let’s all rush to get vaccinated for all the viruses that exist anywhere! Why isn’t a vaccine developed for every virus?

Medication and vaccination have traditionally played a major role in treating diseases but it is now widely accepted that they cannot, in isolation, prevent losses due to disease. Modern farming demands a holistic approach. Unless the background challenge from disease causing organisms can be controlled, and good management practices strictly followed, medication and vaccination alone are not capable of adequately protecting fish stocks. Fish must be given an environment in which the level of infection is controlled to the point where vaccination and medication can achieve beneficial effects. Biosecurity is the key to achieving this.

During the initial stages of a new viral disease, and KHV is a new viral disease if you compare it to any of the other known viruses, biosecurity makes much more sense than any medication or vaccine. We still do not know enough about the virus and it’s long term effects! Why take chances?

Instead of helping to eradicate the virus by destroying infected stocks immediately there are people out there who are willing to take chances with the unknown - just to make a quick buck.
Instead of locating, isolating, disinfecting and separating, there are those who are (albeit not intentionally) helping to spread the virus and/or helping to develop mutant and more virile strains of KHV.
Instead of supplying a fish that everyone can be sure has no chance of carrying the virus, there are some who want to convince us to vaccinate all our Koi so that they cannot be infected by a virus, that, although it exists in almost every Koi producing country, has still infected less than 1 percent of the total Koi population of the world!

This is what DEFRA (The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) had to say in their last newsletter concerning KHV:

Vaccinated carp
There are risks associated with the import of vaccinated and unvaccinated carp because we remain in the process of establishing the scientific evidence in respect of the disease risks they pose. Even if the risks are assessed as low, they are risks that nonetheless exist. It is therefore for fishery operators themselves to decide whether the level of risk of stocking fish is acceptable to their business. In the case of vaccinated carp, that assessment should also take account of the fact that the vaccine used on live fish for export to the UK has no marketing authority for use in the UK or other parts of the EU and, as far as we know, no evaluation has been carried out by those engaged in this trade on the possible risks that imported vaccinated carp may pose to indigenous fish in UK environmental conditions.