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Globally there has been increasing agreement that aquatic animals are entitled to certain welfare considerations and standards. This trend will most likely grow stronger in the years to come. The World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) has realised that animal welfare issues are receiving increased public attention by governments as well as non-governmental and consumer organisations. Animal welfare was identified as a priority in the 2001-2005 OIE Strategic Plan. OIE Member Countries decided that the OIE must provide international leadership on animal welfare. Animal protection includes important scientific, ethical, economic and political dimensions and thus a need to establish guidelines in the field of welfare. The OIE established a permanent Working Group on Animal Welfare (2002) to coordinate and manage animal welfare activities. It was indicated that the welfare of animals used in agriculture and aquaculture should be prioritized and that the development of policies and guiding principles on transportation, humane slaughter and killing for disease control purposes was a primary task. Thus, the OIE established two ad hoc Groups to draft the guiding principles on the humane slaughter of fish for human consumption, killing fish for disease control purposes, and land and sea transport based on the generic OIE guiding principles and policies for animal welfare. Below, the scope and development of these Guidelines, the OIE guiding principles for the welfare of aquatic animals as well as the OIE in house procedures for the approval of a set of guidelines to be incorporated into the OIE Aquatic Animal Health Code will be described in more detail.

During the last few years, the use of vaccines for disease prevention in aquaculture has expanded both with regard to the number of fish species and number of microbial diseases. According to the responses to a questionnaire received from 41 countries, vaccination is used in the commercial aquaculture of species like Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), sea bream (Sparus aurata), barramundi (Lates calcarifer), tilapia (Tilapia spp), turbot (Scophthalmus maximus L.), yellowtail (Seriola quinqueradiata), purplish and gold-striped amberjack (Seriola dumereli), striped jack (Pseudocaranx dentex) and channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). The range of bacterial infections for which vaccines are commercially available now comprises classical vibriosis (Listonella anguillarum, Vibrio ordalii), furunculosis (Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida), cold-water vibriosis (Vibrio salmonicida), yersiniosis (Yersinia ruckeri), pasteurellosis (Photobacterium damselae supsp. piscicida), edwardsiellosis (Edwardsiella ictaluri), winter ulcer (Moritella viscosa), and streptococcosis/lactococcosis (Streptococcus iniae, Lactococcus garviae). Furthermore, experimental vaccines are used against diseases such as infection with Vibrio harveyi and Photobacterium damsela subsp. damsela in barramundi, piscirickettsiosis and bacterial kidney disease in salmonids, as well as infection with Flexibacter maritimus (now: Tenacibaculum maritimum) in turbot. There was good agreement between the information received from different sources in the same country. Most vaccines are licensed products, but some non-licensed vaccines are also used in commercial fish farms. Most bacterial vaccines are inactivated products and recombinant vaccine technology has so far been used to a very limited extent. Salmonid fish are usually immunised with multivalent vaccines by intraperitoneal injection. In marine fish species vaccination is generally performed by immersion, but use of injection vaccination is increasing, particularly in the Mediterranean region. Only limited use of orally administered fish vaccines is reported. In general, the effect of vaccination against bacterial infections is good. The best protection is obtained with injectable, adjuvanted vaccines. However, injection-site adverse reactions often occur when such products are used.