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This West Balkans Regional Aquatic Animal Disease Diagnostic Manual is a handbook whose main purpose is to facilitate the daily duties at aquaculture farms and provide a useful reference that will answer the majority of practical questions posed by official veterinarians, veterinary inspectors and fish health experts in five Western Balkan countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and the Republic of Serbia). It is developed through the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Technical Cooperation Programme Project TCP/RER/3402 “Assistance to Western Balkan Countries for Improving Compliance to International Standards on Aquatic Animal Health”, a regional project that is based on a consultative and consensusbuilding process.

This is a diagnostic guide for the surveillance, clinical inspection and sampling at aquaculture facilities with the aim to detect the diseases listed by the Word Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the European Union (EU) according to their guidelines and standards, as well as other diseases of economic importance. Both standards include monitoring for diseases, the obligatory notification of clinical signs in registered farms and sampling by official veterinarians, activities that unconditionally require knowledge on diseases, farm production, normal appearance of the farmed species, and recognition of any changes that could lead to the suspicion of disease occurrence. Thus, this manual provides essential information on how to perform clinical inspections of fish and mollusc farms, how to recognize unusual behaviour of fish; how to select the most appropriate specimens for laboratory examination; and how to collect, pack and ship samples to the diagnostic laboratory. The laboratory procedures employed to identify the various disease agents are described, and information on the viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases of fish and molluscs in the Western Balkans is provided. The information presented should assist countries to maintain and improve their national aquatic animal health status, harmonize standards regionally, and better comply with the health standard requirements of regional and international trading partners.