Abstract
A large 7-year vaccination trial was conducted in 15 flocks of goats and 7 flocks of sheep, known to be infected with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP), in Northern Greece. A total of 3665 kids and 1685 lambs, 7 - 30 days old, were vaccinated during 1995-1999. Seven hundred and seventy-five kids and 413 lambs were kept as unvaccinated controls. For each trial, the Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR), with respective exact 95% confidence intervals, was calculated. All IRR point estimates for young animals were very large (from 5.68 to 11.78 for kids and from 4.28 to 10.08 for lambs), while none of the 95% confidence intervals included 1. The protective effect of vaccination was large and the difference in mortality among vaccinated and unvaccinated animals was more pronounced in young animals. The effect in adult animals was smaller than in young animals; it was, however, still considerable. Upon visual inspection of the K-M curves, it seems that for the young animal trials the vaccinated and control-group curves were diverging increasingly over time, which indicates that the gain from the vaccination (or the loss from non-vaccination) might increase over time during the trial.
Highlights
Paratuberculosis or Johne’s disease, is a chronic infectious disease of ruminants, caused by infection with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP)
A large 7-year vaccination trial was conducted in 15 flocks of goats and 7 flocks of sheep, known to be infected with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP), in Northern Greece
We investigated the efficacy of the 316f live vaccine in sheep and goats in a large 7-year vaccination trial that was conducted in 22 flocks of small ruminants in Northern Greece to prevent mortality from paratuberculosis
Summary
Paratuberculosis or Johne’s disease, is a chronic infectious disease of ruminants, caused by infection with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). Paratuberculosis or Johne’s disease, is a chronic infectious disease of ruminants, caused by infection with Mycobacterium avium subsp. It is probably one of the most widespread infectious diseases of domestic animals and causes important economic losses in ruminants [1]. Paratuberculosis is notifiable to the World Organization for Animal Health (ΟΙΕ—Office Internationale des Epizooties), but it is not classed as zoonotic or as an emergency disease [2]. Milk has received attention as a potential vehicle of transmission of MAP from animals to humans. Milk destined for human consumption can become contaminated by fecal contamination as well as direct shedding with clinically ill and asymptomatic animals [3,4,5]. Scientific papers report survival of MAP under pasteurization conditions [6,7]
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