To develop new diagnostic technology, to characterise immunological responses better in the target species of animals infected by MAP, and techniques for improved molecular typing and characterisation of bacterial strains responsible for Johne’s disease.

Effective diagnosis is essential to support any programme investigating or evaluating disease control, but challenging due to the nature of the disease.

Johne’s is a chronic infection with a pre-clinical phase that lasts in the highly susceptible farmed deer at least four months and greater than 20 months in cattle and sheep. A wide range of levels of infection is found in animals at different stages of the disease.  When pre-clinical, very few M. paratuberculosis bacilli are present in the tissues and few if any are detectable in faeces. In contrast, enormous numbers of bacilli can be present in clinically affected animals. This work has focused on providing the tools for quantifying the number of bacilli present in tissues and faeces in the different phases of Johne’s disease as well as providing a routine diagnostic test for identifying infected animals. 

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