Countries importing tilapias including Kenya have been put on high alert following a highly contagious disease spreading among the farmed and wild fish species.
The deadly fish disease known as Tilapia Lake Virus (TiLV), has been confirmed in five countries on three continents, posing a great threat to global food security and nutrition.
The countries are: Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Israel and Thailand.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), said that though not a human health risk, TiLV can ruin infected tilapia populations, the world's most important fish for human consumption.
“The outbreak should be treated with concern and countries importing tilapias should take appropriate risk-management measures - intensifying diagnostics testing, enforcing health certificates, deploying quarantine measures and developing contingency plans,” read an alert by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warnings System (FAO-GIEWS).
The alert said that tilapia producing countries need to be vigilant, and should follow aquatic animal-health code protocols of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) when trading tilapia.