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E-Book 2nd Congress

  • Serological investigation of paratuberculosis in goat milk
  • Zahra Hemati,1,* Fatemeh Nasiri Dashtaki,2
    1. Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran.
    2. DVM, Student of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran.


  • Introduction: John’s disease (JD) is a chronic enteric granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP). JD causes to massive economic losses to the infected animal production and also identified the potential risk to the human population, since infected animals could be excreted MAP in their milk, feces and colostrum. Live MAP bacilli were detected in food items such as chease, milk and milk powder. This study describes attempts to screen milk samples from flocks suspected of being infected with JD using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method to detect MAP antibodies.
  • Methods: A total of 42 milk samples were collected from goats belonging to herds of farmers from different areas of northern India. All samples were analyzed for seroprevalence of JD in goats by a commercial ELISA kit.
  • Results: After transforming the OD values into S/P ratio, of a total of 42 milk samples taken from goats, 52.4% tested positive. The milk ELISA test detected zero, 52.4, 9.5, 2.4 and 35.7 % of goats as superpositive, positive, low positive, suspected and negative, respectively.
  • Conclusion: In short, the ELISA method can readily identify MAP-specific antibodies in milk samples from infected goats, while reducing costs and time compared to the standard mycobacterial culture, makes it very convenient method for screening animals suspected to be infected with paratuberculosis in small ruminant.
  • Keywords: John’s disease, Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, ELISA, Goat, Milk sample.