Abstract:Saprolegniasis caused by the pathogenic fungi of Saprolegnia spp. is widely prevalent worldwide. The prohibition of the effective and specific drug malachite green for the prevention and control of Saprolegnia, as well as the non-specific hosts and drug resistance development via biofilm formation of Saprolegnia, increases the difficulty in the prevention and control of this disease, which seriously affects the healthy development of freshwater aquaculture. This paper reviewed the reproductive patterns, identification methods, and prevention and control measures of Saprolegnia. With the mechanism of drug resistance of other related pathogens in aquaculture as a reference, we proposed the measures including improving the identification methods of Saprolegnia, enriching the species of Saprolegnia in the culture collection, elucidating the mechanism of Saprolegnia in developing drug resistance via biofilm formation, establishing the disease models of Saprolegnia infection, developing efficient compound Chinese herbal medicines, optimizing the extraction process of antifungal compounds from Chinese herbal medicines, and evaluating the effectiveness and safety of antifungal compounds for the comprehensive prevention and control of Saprolegnia. The review provided ideas for the development of effective agents for the prevention and control of saprolegniasis in fish.