Ganglioneuritis causing high mortalities in farmed Australian abalone (Haliotis laevigata and Haliotis rubra)

To investigate an outbreak of sudden severe mortality in farmed abalone from coastal Victoria.

The outbreaks occurred almost simultaneously in three farms following abalone movements from the wild and between farms. The initial on farm investigation identified a number of features that when considered together were highly suggestive of an infectious aetiology. In many cases, dead abalone had no significant gross lesions. Others had swollen mouths and some had prolapse and eversion of the radula. Histologically, the lesions centred on the nerves innervating the labial apparatus, primarily the cerebral and buccal ganglia, cerebral commissure and peripheral nerve branches arising from these. Nervous tissue necrosis and haemocyte infiltration were the dominant lesions seen microscopically in affected nerves.

A recent outbreak of mortality in Australian abalone was associated with neurotropic lesions, which have not previously been described in this country. The on farm and between farm pattern of spread of the outbreak, a history of abalone movements linking farms, clinical observation of moribund and dead abalone were all highly suggestive of a virulent infectious agent.