The Beneficial Impacts of Essential Oils Application against Parasitic Infestation in Fish Farm

Abstract

Aquaculture is a growing sector due to the high rising demand for fish, shrimp, oysters, and other products, which is partially conflicted by various infectious diseases. The infectious diseases affecting the production and inducing high mortalities cause substantial economic losses in this sector. Also, parasitic infections may induce severe mortality and morbidity in fish farms. Therefore, most farmers apply several kinds of antibiotics to control the problems induced by bacterial diseases and, to some extent, parasitic infections. The extensive usage of antibiotics to control or prevent pathogens may lead to the development of pathogenic resistant strains that might cause hazards to human health. Besides, there is a global trend toward reducing the application of antibiotics in aquaculture farms. Thus, there is a great effort to discover new natural and safe products with pharmaceutical properties, such as natural essential oils (EO). Essential oils are secondary metabolites of many plants (roots, flowers, seeds, leaves, fruits and peels) and their molecular structures provide a high antimicrobial and antiparasitic efficiency against pathogens. Consequently, it is essential to provide sufficient knowledge about the mode of action of EO against fish parasites and its future applications and directions in aquaculture.