Long before COVID-19 imposed mandatory quarantine and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing on travellers, a small building in a seaside town has been serving to regularly quarantine and test shrimp spawners for, not one, not two, but five viruses that plague shrimp farms. The quarantine facility for incoming tiger shrimp (Penaeus mondon) spawners is part of the shrimp hatchery complex of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC/AQD) in Tigbauan, Iloilo. Spawners are mother shrimp caught from the wild that each hold between 200,000 and 1 million eggs that hatch into larvae that develop into the fry stocked in ponds.

Inside the quarantine facility for shrimp with a PCR testing lab to keep out viruses. (2020, July 25 - 26). Daily Guardian, pp. 6, 7.