Two land-based aquaculture facilities have had to destroy a large number of fish.
The hatcheries were found to have Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) in 600,000 smolts.
The smolts, or young salmon, are hatched at the locations before heading to fish farms to grow to maturity.
Fisheries and Aquaculture minister Keith Colwell couldn’t identify the two facilities but says they were located near to each other.
“That’s a real serious loss for the two companies involved. They’re small companies, so we’re very concerned about that. It’s very unusual that it’s on land-based facilities.”
Colwell could only guess at how the fish became infected.
“Well they have a flow-through system and the water could’ve got in that way. We’re going to do a complete investigation into how that happened.
The minister says the ISA virus is local to Atlantic Canada and poses no risk to humans or other species of fish.
