were used
after confirmation of the infection by histological
methods. For specificity testing, samples from other
viral diseases included baculovirus penaei (BP)
infected tissue confirmed by histology, hepatopan-
creatic parvovirus (HPV) purified virions, white spot
syndrome virus (WSSV) and infectious hypodermal
and hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV) infected
tissue confirmed using PCR reaction with specific
primer pairs.