Eight years of Compulsory Measures against Clinical Paratuberculosis in Austria - A Success?

摘要

The Austrian cattle population consists of about two million animals (Eurostat, http://epp.eurostat. ec. europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home) kept in small farms with an average size of 12 cows and very few farms with more than 100 cows. In thepast, two nationwide studies investigating the Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) prevalence in Austrian cattle were performed. From 1995 to 1997 Gasteiner et al. (1999) tested 2,757 Austrian cattle for MAP. Statistically balanced serum samples from the four oldest cows per farm were collected and analyzed using the Allied-ELISA (Allied Monitor, Fayette, USA). Positive and questionable samples were subjected to further testing with the more specific H-ELISA (Institute of Microbiology, University of Veterinary Science Hannover, Germany).