Herd Prevalence Estimation of Subspecies Burden in the Three Main Dairy Production Regions of Germany (PraeMAP)

Overview

Journal Animals (Basel)

Date 2022 Feb 25

PMID 35203155

Authors

Susanne Eisenberg

Mette Krieger

Amely Campe

Ingrid Lorenz

Esra Einax

Karsten Donat

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

On-farm environmental sampling is an effective method for herd-level diagnosis of ssp. (MAP) infection and between-herd prevalence estimation. So far, no prevalence study enrolling important livestock-farming regions has been conducted. As the structure of dairy farming differs between main livestock-farming regions in Germany, our objective was to assess the between-herd prevalence of paratuberculosis for these regions in a standardized approach. Methods: In total, 457 randomly selected dairy farms from three regions of Germany (North: 183, East: 170, South: 104) were sampled between 2017 and 2019. Environmental samples (boot-swabs, aggregate feces and/or liquid manure samples) were cultured and analyzed using an IS900-qPCR for MAP determination. Of the 457 selected farms, 94 had at least one MAP-positive environmental sample with significant differences between regions regarding the apparent (North: 12.0%, East: 40.6%, South: 2.9%) or corrected true (North: 14.8%, East: 50.1%, South: 3.6%) between-herd prevalence. In conclusion, regional differences of between-herd prevalence of paratuberculosis are substantial in Germany, indicating the need for control approaches with different aims. Taking into account regional MAP prevalence, MAP-control programs should focus on on-farm prevalence reduction or on mitigating the risk of between-herd transmission, depending on region.

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