Investigation on the prevalence and pathology of subclinical paratuberculosis (johne’s disease) in apparently healthy One Humped Camels (Camelus Dromedarius) in Jordan

Abstract

Paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease) (JD) is infectious, chronically progressive granulomatous enteritis affects domestic and exotic ruminants including camels. The causative agent is Mycobacterium Avium Paratuberculosis (MAP), a slow growing mycobactin-dependent acid-fast bacillus. We investigated the occurrence of Johne’s disease in apparently healthy camels, using 100 tissue samples, 50 ileum and 50 corresponding mesenteric lymph nodes, by histopathological, immunohistochemical (IHC) and Acid-fast stain examination. The prevalence of JD in camels in our study was 32% and 34% using histopathology and IHC respectively. Grading from I-IV of histopathological lesions based on type of cellular infiltrate and severity of lesions, where grade I has mild lesion and grade IV has very severe lesion. Most of the positive cases were in grades I and II. Furthermore staging I-III of IHC results using a polyclonal rabbit antibody specific to MAP, has presented a high number of positive cases in stage I. Statistical analysis of these results showed a significant correlation between histopathology and IHC. These results showed that histopathology and IHC revealed the occurrence of paratuberculosis in apparently healthy camels in Jordan. It is interesting to note that this is the first study of JD in camel in Jordan and the results strongly suggest alarming fears of severity of the disease at the national level.