Farmed tilapia. (Photo: Stock File)

Tilapia import banned over virus entrance concerns

GHANA
Thursday, June 28, 2018, 22:30 (GMT + 9)

The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development has decided to ban all tilapia species and ornamental fish import due to the emerging tilapia lake virus (TiLV), of which some cases have already been reported in some African countries.

The ban takes effect from July 1, as an immediate measure to help prevent and control TiLV and will be extended until December 31 this year.

“Tilapia Lake Virus is a newly emerging virus that is associated with significant mortalities in farmed tilapia. The attention of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MoFAD) has been drawn to the fact that, cases have been reported across Africa, Asia and South America that the virus represents a huge risk to the global tilapia industry,” sections of the statement read.

The import ban applies to all live or dead tilapia species, including eggs and milt.

The ministry authorities highlight that this is the first-ever major disease epidemic reported in tilapia aquaculture, and represents a huge risk to the USD 7.5 billion global tilapia industry.

The Ministry stated it will follow up with capacity building and awareness creation programmes at different levels to farmers, hatchery operators, extension officers, and consumers and the general public to support the implementation of simple farm-level biosecurity programmes.

Meanwhile, Head of Aquatic Animal Health Unit of the Fisheries Commission Dr. Peter Ziddah advised consumers to be vigilant and report any suspected case to the ministry.

“This disease, if it enters into our waters, we would have a problem for both the cultured tilapia and the wild tilapia,” he told Citi News.

“This thing is to help the people at the borders to be able to stop the import of these fishes into the country. We are continuing our surveillance and we are going to do active surveillance to make sure we don’t get it into the country. But the first point is to make sure the borders are protected.”

The TiLV virus was first discovered in Israel in 2014 but has since spread across many countries across the world.

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