Vibrio Species Isolated from Farmed Fish in Basra City in Iraq

The world fish production has grown recently- as a consequence of the decline production in capture fishery- with food fish supply increasing at an average annual rate of 3.2 percent, above the growth of the world population to 1.6 percent. World per capita apparent fish consumption increased from an average of 9.9 kg in the 1960s to 19.2 kg in 2012. According to the latest available statistics collected globally by FAO, world aquaculture production attained another all-time high of 90.4 million tons in 2012, including 66.6 million tons of food fish and 23.8 million tons of aquatic algae.

But this worldwide growth of aquaculture is overwhelmed by catastrophic fish diseases and spoilage caused by pathogenic bacteria, which are introduced to the fish farm through natural or artificial food sources, treated inlet water or through vertical transmission from brood stock. The most diseases are caused by Vibrio spp., which are considered the well-known cause of a significant problem for the development of a sector with strong economic losses worldwide because of its high morbidity and mortality rates (mortality ≥ 50%).