O projeto Enviphage, envolvendo investigadores de AZTI, Biopolis S.L. (Espanha), Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal) e Aguacircia Aquaculture Company (Portugal), conclui que os bacteriófagos são uma eficiente alternativa ao uso de antibióticos em aquacultura.
Use of natural bacteriophages, which do not affect the health of fish or that of consumers, becomes an interesting alternative to the use of antibiotics. Different research projects had obtained very promising results at laboratory level, but before being able to use bacteriophages at an industrial level, it was necessary to know about the impact of their use on the environment and the marine ecology.
The results obtained during 2017 show that the bacteria community of the intestinal tract of the fish is not significantly affected following treatment with the selected phages. It has also been shown that this treatment does not modify the marine bacteria population in the tanks on the fish farm or in the river where the fish farm is located, so it has zero impact or very limited impact on the bacterial ecology.
