Meta-analysis of Johne's disease in the Iranian animal population (1999-2020)

Johne's disease (JD) affects domestic and wild animals across the globe. Paratuberculosis exerts huge economic impacts on the animal industry. Despite significant economic losses, little knowledge is available on the epidemiological status of Paratuberculosis in the animal population of Iran. The present study aimed to evaluate the prevalence rate of this disease in the Iranian animal population with confidence interval (CI) and p-value. The search was conducted on and screened the electronic international and national databases. Thereafter, sufficient and relevant data were extracted. Data were analyzed in STATA software (version 14). Prevalence disease rates were determined using random effect models. A total of 52 articles were included in the systematic review. According to the results, the overall disease incidence rate in Iran was 20.39%. The prevalence rate of JD was 22.33% (95% CI, 18.87-25.78) in the cattle population and 25.61% (95% CI, 21.43-29.78) in sheep. This study pinpointed that cattle and sheep were the most commonly infected hosts. The highest prevalence rate of disease was 35.88% in Tehran (95% CI, 16.77-54.99), followed by 32.86% (95% CI, 25.07-40.65), and 20.10% (95% CI, 14.63-25.58) in Khorasan Razavi and Kerman, respectively. The lowest prevalence rate of JD was 2.27% in Ilam (95% CI, 0.84-3.70). Based on this result, molecular-based methods were properly compared to other diagnostic methods. This study reported Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) prevalence in dairy herds in the provinces of Iran. The infection transmission from animal sources to humans and the potential role of MAP in human disease highlight a critical need for further study on this issue.