A review on aquaculture adaptation for fish treatment from antibiotic to vaccine prophylaxis

Aquaculture is considered one of the fastest-growing food production sectors, which provides about 41% of the world’s fish food. Different types of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, amoebas, oomycetes, fungi, and ectoparasites, have emerged to cause serious fish diseases. Medicines such as antibiotics and chemicals as well as vaccines have been widely used to combat fish diseases. However, their undesirable use to treat fish in aquaculture develops drug resistance in the surrounding microbes, especially antibiotic resistance in fish-associated bacterial strains in the column water and sediment, is mostly the consequence of applying antibiotics in aquaculture. The rise of antibiotic resistance in aquaculture and multidrug-resistant pathogens in the food chain threatens public health, hampering infection treatment and compromising food safety. Addressing this challenge is vital to protect both public well-being and the aquaculture industry’s future. Basic control measures for sustainable, disease-free aquaculture, including alteration of antibiotic resistance genes into other animal pathogens, have been driven by the potential development of antibiotics with respect to environmental impact and consumer safety. Anyhow, vaccination is an effective control measure that overcomes drug resistance conditions in aquaculture; even some therapeutic and prophylactic methods are being simultaneously applied for the treatment of fish diseases. Mostly, antibiotics and probiotics do not show strong effects after the development of new mutant strains and drug-resistant pathogens. Therefore, various types of vaccines have been developed to treat aquatic pathogens effectively by using advanced molecular techniques. Previous studies on fish vaccines have typically lacked comprehensive assessments of vaccine efficacy across varying environments and species, often focusing on single pathogens while neglecting the potential influence of pathogen interactions within complex aquatic ecosystems. This review focuses on advancements in technology and prospects of vaccines used in the aquaculture industries for reducing antibiotics usage. It also discussed the vaccination from traditional to modern new-generation ones including DNA, monovalent, and polyvalent vaccines. The objective is to provide an overview of aquaculture’s major bacterial pathogens and how vaccines can substitute antibiotics to protect aquatic animals from various infectious diseases.