Globally, aquaculture has faced serious economic problems due to bacterial, viral, and various other infectious diseases of different origins. Even though such diseases are being detected and simultaneously treated with several therapeutic and prophylactic methods, the broad-spectrum activity of vaccines plays a vital role as a preventive measure in aquaculture. However, treatments like use of antibiotics and probiotics seem to be less effective when new mutant strains develop and disease causing pathogens become resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Therefore, vaccines developed by using recent advanced molecular techniques can be considered as an effective way of treating disease causing pathogens in aquatic organisms. The present review emphasizes on the current advances in technology and future outlook with reference to different types of vaccines used in the aquaculture industries. Beginning with traditional killed/inactivated and live attenuated vaccines, this work culminates in the review of modern new generation ones including recombinant, synthetic peptides, mucosal and DNA, subunit, nanoparticle-based and plant-based edible vaccines, reverse vaccinology, and monovalent and polyvalent vaccines.

Aquaculture is growing post-haste in recent years particularly in the fish and shrimp production. The rapid growth of aquaculture and increasing demand for fish have led to a rapid development of the fish and shrimp industry, resulting in increased production of both fish and shrimps. As a result, there is a greater risk of disease outbreaks. Mass mortalities in aquaculture are primarily due to infectious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Among them, viral diseases are the most devastating, causing huge loss in the production of both cultured fish and shellfishes. There are several effective methods of treatment for these disease outbreaks. This review focuses on various methods of controlling the viral pathogens using various treatment methods like use of medicinal plants and seaweed extracts, bioactive compounds from actinomycetes, vaccines, probiotic microbes, chemicals, nanoparticles, and green synthesis of nanoparticles.