INNOVATIVE APPROACHES FOR PREDICTIVE SURVEILLANCE, DISEASE PREVENTION, AND SUSTAINABLE HEALTH MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The rapid expansion of aquaculture has made aquatic animal health management increasingly complex. Disease outbreaks are no longer driven by pathogens alone; they emerge from interactions among the cultured host, the rearing environment, farm management practices, and microbial communities. Conventional diagnostic methods remain indispensable, but they often identify disease only after visible signs, mortality, and economic losses have already occurred. A more sustainable approach requires a shift from reactive treatment to predictive health management. This chapter examines how real-time environmental sensing, Internet of Things-enabled monitoring, artificial intelligence, non invasive pathogen molecular surveillance, diagnostics, rapid vaccination, microbiome-directed nutrition, and antibiotic sparing interventions can be integrated into a unified health-management framework. Particular attention is given to environmental DNA and RNA surveillance, nanopore sequencing, biosensors, CRISPR-based diagnostics, probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, bacteriophages, phytobiotics, antimicrobial peptides, and nanotechnology-based delivery systems. The practical value of these tools depends not only on scientific novelty, but also on their reliability, affordability, biosafety, and suitability for farm-level implementation. Sustainable aquatic animal health management will therefore require an integrated strategy that links early warning, prevention, targeted continuous verification.