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The COST action “Standardising output-based surveillance to control non-regulated diseases of cattle in the European Union (SOUND control),” aims to harmonise the results of surveillance and control programmes (CPs) for non-EU regulated cattle diseases to facilitate safe trade and improve overall control of cattle infectious diseases. In this paper we aimed to provide an overview on the diversity of control for these diseases in Europe. A non-EU regulated cattle disease was defined as an infectious disease of cattle with no or limited control at EU level, which is not included in the European Union Animal health law Categories A or B under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/2002. A CP was defined as surveillance and/or intervention strategies designed to lower the incidence, prevalence, mortality or prove freedom from a specific disease in a region or country. Passive surveillance, and active surveillance of breeding bulls under Council Directive 88/407/EEC were not considered as CPs. A questionnaire was designed to obtain country-specific information about CPs for each disease. Animal health experts from 33 European countries completed the questionnaire. Overall, there are 23 diseases for which a CP exists in one or more of the countries studied. The diseases for which CPs exist in the highest number of countries are enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, bovine viral diarrhoea and anthrax (CPs reported by between 16 and 31 countries). Every participating country has on average, 6 CPs (min–max: 1–13) in place. Most programmes are implemented at a national level (86%) and are applied to both dairy and non-dairy cattle (75%). Approximately one-third of the CPs are voluntary, and the funding structure is divided between government and private resources. Countries that have eradicated diseases like enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and bovine viral diarrhoea have implemented CPs for other diseases to further improve the health status of cattle in their country. The control of non-EU regulated cattle diseases is very heterogenous in Europe. Therefore, the standardising of the outputs of these programmes to enable comparison represents a challenge.

Countries typically collect disease data in a way that is best suited for their specific needs. Therefore, differences exist in the sampling schemes and the diagnostic methods, which produce non‐comparable data and, subsequently, non‐comparable estimates of the prevalence of disease. The objective of the HOTLINE project was to make disease information comparable and interpretable across different sampling and testing settings. To serve this objective a series of Bayesian tools were developed and applied. Reporting guidelines aimed at promoting a more consistent approach to communication of animal health surveillance activities and their outputs, including what information must be reported to make true prevalence estimation feasible, have also been created. For tutorial purposes, an interactive web application was created to carry out Bayesian analysis of hierarchically structured prevalence data. E‐lectures and training material for all models and methods are available through the free training session of our webpage with step by step explanations. Finally, a mailing list and LinkedIn group have been established to sustain a fruitful communication in the development and deployment of such methods.

Background This study aimed to screen the sera of goats and sheep from flocks suspected of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection by a newly standardized Mce-truncated ELISA (Mt-ELISA) kit for the detection of antibodies against MAP. Four diagnostic applied tests were evaluated including Indigenous plate-ELISA (IP-ELISA), Mt-ELISA, fecal Polymerase Chain Reaction (f-PCR) and fecal culture (FC). Materials and methods Assuming the absence of a gold standard, latent-class models in a Bayesian framework were used to estimate the diagnostic accuracy of the four tests for MAP. Results Mt-ELISA had higher Sensitivity (Se) in sheep (posterior median: 0.68 (95% Probability Interval (PI): 0.43–0.95), while IP-ELISA recorded the highest Se in goats as 0.83 (95% PI, 0.61–0.97). The f-PCR Se estimate slightly differed between species [sheep 0.36 (0.19–0.58), goats 0.19 (0.08–0.35)], while the Se of FC was similar between species [sheep 0.29 (0.15–0.51), goats 0.27 (0.13–0.45)]. The specificity estimates for all tests were high, close to unity, and similar between species. Conclusion Overall, the results showed that the Mt-ELISA method can be used for MAP detection in small ruminants’ flocks.

Lyme borreliosis (LB) and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) are important tick-borne diseases in Europe. This study aimed to investigate the seroreactivity against Borrelia burgdorferi and TBE virus (TBEV) in tick-infested individuals in North Macedonia and Serbia. Serum samples were collected from tick-infested individuals and from healthy individuals in the same regions. Samples were tested for anti-Borrelia IgG reactivity and TBEV-neutralizing antibodies. Results showed higher seroreactivity against Borrelia antigens in patients and healthy donors from Novi Sad compared to those from the Skopje region. However, there was no statistically significant difference between tick-infested patients and healthy donors within each region. No TBEV-neutralizing antibodies were detected in participants from Novi Sad or in the control groups, except for one person from North Macedonia who had a moderate TBEV-neutralizing reaction. The study highlights the need for improved surveillance and diagnostic capabilities for LB and TBE in these regions. It also suggests the potential existence of TBEV foci in North Macedonia. The findings provide a complementary understanding of the LB and TBE epidemiology in the studied regions; however, further research is needed to investigate the presence and distribution of Borrelia spp. and TBEV in ticks to assess the significance of detected seroreactivity.