Fish Diseases and Management

7.3.9.Assessment of vaccines

 

Route of administration is an important point of consideration in vaccination as it has to be free from stress at the same time ensuring that the vaccine reaches all the fish in a system. Care has to be taken to see that the challenging route must simulate the natural route of infection

Relative percent survival (RPS) is a measure of the potency of the vaccines and has to be checked invariably for all the vaccines to be marketed. A minimum of 25 fish should be used for the experimentation. The challenge with infected pathogen should cause 60% mortality in control and non-specific mortality should be less than 10 %. Vaccinated fish should show mortality below 24%. For the experiment, groups of six fish should be used, Challenge should use wide range of dose with 10 fold increase. At least 100 fold increase indicates a good potency of the vaccine.