ALL Mainstream Canada salmon farms test negative for IHN virus; “IHNV is ubiquitous in Alaska”
Seafood Intelligence, June 5, 2012
As of Monday (June 4th), all of Mainstream Canada’s farms have been tested for the Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) virus, and all tests have come back negative, the company announced. Since the virus was first detected at Dixon Bay farm May 14 (since ‘depopulated’), Mainstream has done extensive sampling at all its farm sites. One of these samples, taken from Bawden Point farm, showed a “weak positive” for the IHN virus. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) did two more rounds of sampling and testing, one week apart, at Bawden Point farm. All these samples have tested negative for IHN virus. The quarantine on Bawden Point farm has since been lifted by CFIA. All fish at this site look healthy, mortality remains very low and no clinical signs of IHN virus have been detected, the company said. “This is good news for us, but we will stay on alert and maintain very strict bio-security measures and keep our farms isolated, while frequently testing for the virus,” said Fernando Villarroel, Mainstream Canada’s managing director.
NB Ed: The virus caught the attention of some salmon farming critics, and prompted many headlines in the Pacific Northwest. This highlights the need for industry transparency re. fish mortalities and diseases. Despite what could be construed from some critics & headlines, IHN is a virus actually commonly found in the wild in Pacific waters, where the infection likely came from. It was first reported in Washington State in 1953, in California in 1960, in Japan in 1971 in sockeye egg imports from Alaska; then in Alaska in 1973. Many occurrences since have led Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) research to conclude, already 25 years ago, that “IHNv is ubiquitous in Alaska”. Calls urging consumers to stop eating potentially IHNv-infected - farmed, but not wild - salmon were surely based on irrational fears & bias, rather than on science & food safety…
