HOW CAN WE EVALUATE THE EFFICACY OF PARATUBERCULOSISCONTROL PROGRAMMES?

摘要

Evaluation of control programmes for paratuberculosis is challenging, because of lack of non-participating representative control herds. Furthermore, a trend in the apparent prevalence is a poor indicator of programme efficacy, because culling of test-positives changes the population characteristics of infected animals and with that the estimate of apparent prevalence. This study demonstrates that the age at onset of test positiviry as well as the probability of a positive result when an individual is first tested are useful parameters for evaluation of the efficacy of a paratuberculosis control programme.