Workshop To Focus On Wasting Disease In Cattle
US - Johne's disease has been found in 68 per cent of dairy herds and causes an estimated annual loss of $220 million to the US dairy industry.
7 February 2011
2 minute read
A contagious, chronic and usually fatal bacterial infection of the intestine in ruminants, the disease reduces a cow's milk production, causes weight loss in cows, and contributes to premature culling of clinically affected animals.
The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is now accepting applications for its Investigative Workshop: Modeling Johne's Disease to be held 6-8 July, at NIMBioS on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus.
The goal of the workshop is to contribute to the control and ultimate eradication of the cause of Johne's (pronounced "Yo-nees") disease through the application of mathematical modeling.
Scientists in mathematics, biostatistics, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, immunology, molecular biology and genetics will collaborate at the workshop to better understand the epidemiology and immunology of the disease.
Named after German veterinarian H. A. Johne who first described the disease in 1845, the disease is particularly common in diary cattle but also affects sheep, goats, deer, antelope and bison. Non-ruminants, such as birds, raccoons, fox and mice for example, may become infected, but rarely do they become sick because of the infection.
Since the early 1990s, mathematical modeling has been applied for better understanding of the disease's epidemiology and for estimating the cost-benefit of various control strategies.
However, there has not previously been a meeting of scientists from multidisciplinary fields to help facilitate mathematical modeling studies in Johne's disease. Further, until now, there has been no mathematical modeling approach for studying the immunology of the disease.
The workshop is organized Shigetoshi Eda (Center for Wildlife Health, University of Tennessee, Knoxville); Ynte H. Schukken (Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, Cornell University); Ian A. Gardner (Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, University of California, Davis); John P. Bannantine (Agricultural Research Service, US. Department of Agriculture).
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