At the 2018 meeting of the European Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (14-17 October, 2018) Pelletier et al. reported on the use of a new phage-based assay called Actiphage™ Rapid kit from PBD Biotech to detect MAP in blood samples from bovine calves. Details are provided in the two page abstract (link below).
Comment: This report is interesting from two perspectives. The first is the biology of MAP infections in dairy calves. This the first report of MAP detection in blood samples of 3 different calves soon after birth; 1, 15, and 84 days of age for the three different calves. The calves reverted to test-negative after the single MAP detection. The second perspective is the promise of improved diagnostics for paratuberculosis using phages to enhance DNA extraction of MAP DNA from clinical samples to enhance the diagnostic sensitivity of real-time PCR assays for MAP.