Viral hemorrhagic septicemia

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) is a deadly infectious fish disease caused by Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus. It afflicts over 50 species of freshwater and marine fish in several parts of the Northern Hemisphere.^[1] Different strains of the virus occur in different regions, and affect different species. There are no signs that the disease affects human health. VHS is also known as Egtved disease, and the virus as Egtved virus.^[2]

Historically, VHS was associated mostly with freshwater salmonids in western Europe, documented as a pathogenic disease among cultured salmonids since the 1950s.^[3] Today it is still a major concern for many fish farms in Europe and is therefore being watched closely by the European Community Reference Laboratory for Fish Diseases. It was first discovered in the US in 1988 among salmon returning from the Pacific in Washington state.^[4] This North American genotype was identified as a distinct, more marine-stable strain than the European genotype. VHS has since been found afflicting marine fish in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea.^[3] Since 2005, massive die-offs have occurred among a wide variety of freshwater species in the Great Lakes region of North America.