Findings from a 16-year monitoring of Viral Notifiable Diseases in Salmonid Fish in Piedmont Region (Italy)

Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) and Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (VHS) are two systemic infections of several species of salmonids; whose reporting is mandatory in accordance with Directive 67/1991 EC. In order to obtain and preserve the free status at farm level, the Italian legislation (D.L.vo 148/2008) adopted a surveillance program involving all freshwater farms raising salmonids to be released on watercourses. This study provides a description of the epidemiology of IHN and VHS in the Piedmont Region, during the period 2000-2015. In fact in the last 16 years the surveillance was extended to all fisheries. We firstly described the disease distribution by year and by geographical area., then the potential role of several farm charcteristics was tested using unvariate and multivariate analysis.

Keywords: VHS, IHN, Epidemiology, Piedmont Region, Salmonid fish.