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From almost negligible amounts in 1970, the quantity of cultivated shrimp (~3 million metric tons in 2007) has risen to approach that of the capture fishery and it constitutes a vital source of export income for many countries. Despite this success, viral diseases along the way have caused billions of dollars of losses for shrimp farmers. Desire to reduce the losses to white spot syndrome virus in particular, has stimulated much research since 2000 on the shrimp response to viral pathogens at the molecular level. The objective of the work is to develop novel, practical methods for improved disease control. This review covers the background and limitations of the current work, baseline studies and studies on humoral responses, on binding between shrimp and viral structural proteins and on intracellular responses. It also includes discussion of several important phenomena (i.e., the quasi immune response, viral co-infections, viral sequences in the shrimp genome and persistent viral infections) for which little or no molecular information is currently available, but is much needed.