University of Wisconsin–Madison

Ovine Paratuberculosis in Uruguay

Case Report:

Eleven cases of Johne’s disease are described in this case report. All originate from a 735 head flock of sheep in Colonia, Uruguay. Six animals had the multibacillary form of the disease (abundant acid-fast bacteria), and 5 had the paucibacillary form with minimal lesions. All animals were infected with the S-strain of MAP. This is only the second time the S-strain of MAP has been reported in South America, the other being from a sheep in Argentina.

Comment: This report has a lovely scanning electron micrograph of MAP inside macrophages, an excellent picture of the thickened intestine, and good histopathology images, both H&E stained and ZN-stained. The article notes that Johne’s disease is widespread in Uruguayan cattle but has not been documented as a problem in sheep until this case report. This report is newsworthy for documenting S-strain MAP infections in sheep in Uruguay and for the relatively young journal in which the report appears.

This is an open-access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, 12(3):190-195, 2018.