Proceedings of the 10th International Colloquium on Paratuberculosis

#55
Birth clusters <strong>of</strong> animals infected with Mycobacterium avium subspecies
paratuberculosis in a New York State dairy herd
Fieke van Genugten, 1,2 Mitchell RM, 1 Stehman, SM, 1 and Schukken YH 1*
1Department <strong>of</strong> Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College <strong>of</strong> Veterinary Medicine,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; 2 Veterinary Centre “De Overlaet“, Oss, <strong>the</strong> Ne<strong>the</strong>rlands;
* Corresponding author: Tel: +1-607-255-8202; Fax: +1-607-257-8485; Email:
yschukken@cornell.edu
ABSTRACT
In this longitudinal study on an eight year database <strong>of</strong> a New York dairy farm, we attempted to
evaluate whe<strong>the</strong>r cows who eventually become Map shedders, were more likely born in clusters
<strong>of</strong> shedders. The data set used in this study contains data <strong>of</strong> 2788 cows from one dairy farm
during an intensive individual animal diagnostic testing period starting in 1995 and lasting until
2002. During this period a Johne’s Control program was implemented on <strong>the</strong> farm. The
SaTScan v 7.01 s<strong>of</strong>tware was used to make temporary scans for <strong>the</strong> birth clusters in this
herd. SaTScan is a s<strong>of</strong>tware that analyzes spatial, temporal and space-time data using <strong>the</strong>
spatial, temporal, or space-time scan statistics This program was designed to use windows <strong>of</strong>
different size to identify statistically significant clusters <strong>of</strong> events (p