What is VHS and where is it from?
Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, known as VHS, is an infectious disease of fish that was first diagnosed in 2005 in fish in the Great Lakes, and was confirmed as the cause of fish kills in lakes Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario and the St. Lawrence River in 2005 and 2006. VHS was detected for the first time this spring in fish from Wisconsin waters of the Lake Winnebago System and Lake Michigan. Fish biologists believe the virus may soon be in fish from lake Superior and the Mississippi River and their tributaries if it’s not already there. Historically, VHS was known as a very serious disease of farm-raised rainbow trout in Europe. The Great Lakes strain of VHS is genetically different than the strains from Europe and the Pacific Northwest, in that the Great Lakes strain seems to affect a wider range of freshwater species over a broader range of water temperatures.
