[1] Aeromonas salmonicida's ability to infect a variety of hosts, multiply, and adapt, make it a prime virulent bacterium.

A. salmonicida is an etiological agent for furunculosis, a disease that causes sepsis, haemorrhages, muscle lesions, inflammation of the lower intestine, spleen enlargement, and death in freshwater fish populations.

[1][2] The major route of contamination is poor water quality; however, it can also be associated stress factors such as overcrowding, high temperatures, and trauma.

[3] In addition, the genome is composed of a single circular chromosome (4,702,402 bp), with two large and three small plasmids.

Some of these exceptions include a distinguishable variation in pigment production, the bacterium's ability to ferment selected sugars, and Voges-Proskauer assay results.

[5] A. salmonicida, an airborne pathogen, can travel 104 cm from its host into the atmosphere and back to the water,[6] thus making it difficult to control.

[13] The symptoms the fish show are external and internal hemorrhaging, swelling of the vents and kidneys, boils, ulcers, liquefaction, and gastroenteritis.

Deep or shallow ulcers, exophthalmia, bloody spots, distended abdomen, and petechia at the base of the fin may also occur.

Internally, the infected fish may suffer from gastroenteritis, hemorrhagic septicemia, edematous kidney, and an enlarged spleen.

Isolates are retrieved from muscle lesions, kidney, spleen, or liver, and then grown on trypticase soy agar and brain-heart infusion medium incubated at 20–25 °C.

It tests positive for oxidase, lysine decarboxylase, methyl red, gelatin hydrolysis, and catalase.