Open workshop: Bottlenecks in diagnostics of Mediterranean fish diseases

The goal of two EU funded projects in the frame of Horizon 2020, namely MedAID and PerformFISH, is to increase the overall competitiveness and sustainability of the Mediterranean marine fish-farming sector, throughout the whole value chain. An important aspect of both projects is managing transmissible diseases of farmed fish. Another H2020 project ParaFishControl, aiming to improve understanding of fish-parasite interaction and developing innovative solutions and tools for the prevention, control and mitigation of farmed fish parasitic diseases, interacts with these two projects in the field of the parasitic diseases. The projects are actively cooperating in all possible aspects and the workshop will cover one of the mutual interests of these three EU H2020 projects: diagnostics. PerformFISH is working on a deliverable on diagnostic methods and MedAID and ParaFishControl have prepared Diagnostic Manuals for certain diseases. Still, further efforts for the validation of diagnostic methods of infectious diseases in Mediterranean aquaculture are needed. In addition, harmonization of recommended procedures is necessary for the generation of meaningful field data at all levels, and the scope of diagnostic manuals is to standardize these procedures as much as possible. Workshop program: 1. Presentations: • Diagnostic methods (PerformFISH and MedAID) • Diagnostic manual on viral and bacterial diseases of seabass and seabream (MedAID) • Diagnostic manual on parasitic diseases of European aquacultured fish. (ParaFishControl) • Diagnostic capacities in the Mediterranean basin (PerformFISH and MedAID) 2. Working group discussion with the following topics: • VNN • Vibrio and Tenacibaculum • Fastidious and intracellular bacteria, Red Rash Syndrome • Identification and assessment of intestinal parasites and ectoparasites Each group should discuss challenges in implementing standardized procedures and the bottlenecks in diagnostics of the mentioned pathogens and prepare a summary from the discussion for presentation in plenary. The discussion will be moderated by experts of MedAID, PerformFISH and ParaFishControl. 3. The final plenary session will summarize bottlenecks, discuss the way forward to overcome them and try to make conclusions. The summary of the discussions and conclusions is planned to be written in a joint publication for the EAFP Bulletin.