A Virus From Farmed Seafood Is Causing A New Eye Disease In People

InnovationScienceA Virus From Farmed Seafood Is Causing A New Eye Disease In PeopleByJohn Drake,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. John Drake is a professor at the University of Georgia. Follow AuthorApr 22, 2026, 07:30am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.A farmer places small fishing net into a pond to catch shrimps at her family's farm in Do Son, in the suburds of northern coastal city of Hai Phong on 14 September 2002. AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH NAM. (Photo by HOANG DINH NAM / AFP) (Photo by HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty ImagesUntil recently, covert mortality nodavirus was a problem mainly for shrimp farmers. First identified in Chinese aquaculture ponds in 2014, CMNV killed animals invisibly. Infected shrimp sank to the bottom of ponds and died out of sight, so farmers had no idea they were losing stock. The virus spread through the global seafood supply chain, infecting more than twenty species of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other marine animals. Mortality in shrimp reached 80%. The World Organisation for Animal Health initially classified it as an emerging disease. But when WOAH last updated its official disease card in February 2024, it listed the virus’s zoonotic importance — its capacity to infect humans — as “None.” That was not a stale document left to gather dust. The 2024 card was itself an update of a 2023 version that said the same thing. Someone reviewed the evidence twice and saw no threat.That assessment is now obsolete. A study published in Nature Microbiology in March reports that CMNV is the cause of a new human eye disease called persistent ocular hypertensive viral anterior uveitis, or POH-VAU. The evidence is not circumstantial. A team led by researchers at Qingdao’s Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences and Shandong First Medical University found viral particles physically present in the...