Effects of infectious young stock on results of certification, surveillance and control programmes for paratuberculosis in dairy herds.

In many epidemiological models for paratuberculosis, it is assumed that infected young stock (<2 years of age) do not shed Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) before adulthood. If this assumption were true, the effective separation of young stock from adult cattle (≥ 2 years) would largely prevent postnatal infections, provided that uninfected adult cattle are highly resistant to infection. However, this assumption is in contrast with observed faecal shedding of MAP in young stock. Consequently, this assumption may have resulted in an underestimation of the effects of MAP transmission in herds participating in certification-, surveillance-, and control programmes for paratuberculosis. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the long-term effects of transmission of MAP amongst young stock on key output parameters of certification-, surveillance-, and control programmes for paratuberculosis in simulated closed dairy herds. Closed Dutch dairy herds participating in a paratuberculosis programme were simulated with a stochastic model, JohneSSim. Various test schemes, preventive management measures, distributions of age at onset of faecal shedding and rates of effective contacts between young stock were simulated. The results indicate that transmission of MAP amongst young stock has no relevant effects on the animal-level prevalence and milk quality of herds that are certified in a paratuberculosis programme. However, transmission of MAP amongst young stock increased the economic losses due to paratuberculosis and costs of participation in a programme. Moreover, it substantially decreased the beneficial effect of the separation of young stock from adult cattle on the probability of being certified. However, even in the presence of transmission of MAP amongst young stock, preventive management measures to separate young stock from adult cattle remain important.