Counting the costs of farmed salmonids diseases

This article describes the assumptions and calculations underlying best estimates of the direct and indirect costs of three salmonid diseases in the United Kingdom: infectious salmon anaemia (ISA), viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS), and infectious haemorrhagic necrosis (IHN) using a standardized spreadsheet-based model. The data input for the model was derived from the literature and from a small survey specifically conducted to obtain the additional information required. The costs of private and public surveillance, treatment, prevention, and eradication of the known outbreaks of ISA and VHS, and a simulated outbreak of IHN, were estimated. The average current costs of all aquaculture disease surveillance and control by the private and public sectors averaged £17.6 million per annum, of which the private sector share of expenditure averaged 80% per annum. Specific disease surveillance and control costs for three diseases ranged between £4.7 million and £5.6 million per annum. While the current literature supports the concept that indirect costs (such as export trade restriction and consumer response to disease outbreak) have the capacity to cause major losses in the industry, the indication in our model is that the magnitude of indirect costs for salmonid disease outbreak is not significant.