Seroprevalence of Paratuberculosis in the Burdur Province (turkey), in Dairy Cattle Using the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (elisa)

The objective of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of paratuberculosis in dairy cattle in Burdur province located in southwest of Turkey. Blood samples were collected and tested by the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) from 465 dairy cattle older than 2 years randomly selected from 24 dairy cattle herds. Seroprevalence of paratuberculosis was found in 6.2% at the individual cow level and 58.3% at herd level. Seropositivity was detected in a total 14 of 24 herds. The prevalence of paratuberculosis by age ranged from 3.6% to 19.73% where the highest prevalence rate was found in 3 years olds. In conclusion, we determined that the seroprevalence of paratuberculosis in Burdur province was higher than those in other parts of Turkey. In addition, we found that when the size of the herd increased, the possibility of infection with paratuberculosis was greater. diagnosis of paratuberculosis as a serologic assay as it is cheap and easy to perform (3,14,15,16) and more sensitive than the AgID and CFT for diagnosis of clinically affected animals (3). In this study we set out to determine the prevalence of paratuberculosis by the ELISA technique in dairy cows in Burdur province of Turkey. We also investigated the relationship between herd size and paratuberculosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Animals and sample collection This study was conducted on 24 holstein dairy cattle herds in the Burdur province, located in southwest of Turkey. The total of area of the region is 7,135 km2 and is a crossing area between the Aegean, Middle Anatolia and Mediterranean parts of Turkey. The maximum altitude is 1000 m above sea level. The herds with cattle two years and older animals were randomly selected without consideration of herd size. Sera samples were collected from four hundred and sixty five animals. Since there were no studies in Burdur province on the prevalence of paratuberculosis in dairy cattle herds, the sample size of animals was determined using an expected seroprevalence of 50%, a confidence level of 95% and error of