Compilation of antiviral treatments and strategies to fight fish viruses

Abstract The implementation of antiviral treatments and prophylaxis strategies in fish aquaculture needs to be established. The absence of commercial vaccines for most viral diseases affecting economically relevant fish species, and the total lack of treatments to fight these diseases once they have emerged in a fish farm remains one of the main bottlenecks in fish aquaculture production. However, although no antivirals are currently applied on farms, a great number of investigations have been conducted to assess the potential use of antiviral treatments against several fish viruses. Although most of these works were based on in vitro approaches, some included in vivo experiments to demonstrate the potential applicability of these treatments. This review summarizes the investigations conducted both in vitro and in vivo in the field of antiviral treatments against fish viruses. The highlighted works include those using piscine and non‐piscine proteins with antimicrobial functions, metabolites, chemical compounds (some of which are used in medicine to treat human viruses), bioactive compounds mainly isolated from plants and bacteria, and emerging DNA‐ and RNA‐based therapeutics. This information can be used for developing both specific and broad‐spectrum antiviral strategies to be further used in the aquaculture industry, and it may even provide interesting indications for biomedical research.