Johne's Disease Working Group minutes: May 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Scottish Government officials
• Environmental Health and Trading Standards
• Moredun
• Biobest
• National Farmers Union Scotland
• HiHealth Herdcare
• British Veterinary Association
• Synergy Farm Health
• British Cattle Veterinary Association
• Action Johne's
• Scottish Dairy Cattle Association
• Scotland's Rural College
• farmers
• vets

Items and actions

Terms of reference and objectives

The group agreed to a terms of reference document and objectives to set the purpose and goals of the group going forward. 

Work on surveillance and prevalence of Johne's Disease in the UK (their findings and limitations)

The question was raised as to whether the group were looking at prevalence of Johne's Disease in its clinical form or paratuberculosis (Map). True prevalence levels are difficult to obtain due to diagnostic variability, strain differences and disease characteristics. It's important to understand for trade impacts and disease management. 

The variation on prevalence in studies is dependent on which area of the livestock sector is being investigated, prevalence within herd of between herds and the test type. 

To help gain awareness of the economic losses and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with Johne's Disease, surveillance needs to be improved, particularly given the under-reporting of Johne's Disease. Action Johne's has a national tracker with current data on 3000 herds, though this data is anonymised and can't be filtered to Scotland-only.

A greenhouse gas emissions project investigating within herd and between herd prevalence created an economic model to measure impacts, though data interpretation required caution. 

Links between TB and Johne's Disease was bought up, due to the spatial distribution map of Johne's Disease mirroring TB prevalence in England and Wales. It was suggested to investigate recording Johne's Disease risk on ScotEID in a similar way to BVD. 

Report from Orkney on their Johne's scheme

Mass testing on Orkney in 2009 involved testing 30,000 animals annually on 500 famrs. Testing estimated 2% of all Orkney cows were positive, with positive animals being kept in a completely separate field to rear calves. Farmers are now much quicker to identifiy signs of possible disease and managing this before clinical signs present.

The Welsh Black Society estimated it takes 10 years to fix a big Johne's Disease problem or 5 years with a small problem, this has proven accurate in the case of Orkney. Testing has made a huge impact in rates of disease and they have very few clinical cases as a result. Funding for the project was for three years and ended in 2012, with many famers continuing to be involved. Any bulls being bought in are tested and farmers are encouraged to test breeding herds.

Scottish Government funding and projects

Scottish Government have funded a project being undertaken by Moredun to improve tools for the control of Johne's Disease using a mycolic acid ELISA. Another project funded by Scottish Government was undertaken by Scotland's Rural College on uptake of biosecurity practices including health planning in paratuberculosis. Their approach looks at different influences on a farmer's decision making around the disease, measuring the business impact on having Johne's Disease. 

Work has been taking place to secure £5,000 for a small Johne's Disease project looking at herds which have been blood testing for a long time but not making progress. Possible future project proposals were also discussed. 

Comms strategy

A comms release will be created to introduce the working group.