By Troy Farrell, Ohio Department of Agriculture, Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory

With the assistance of the Technical Support group at TREK Diagnostic Systems, our laboratory’s transition from HEY to the para-JEM®/ESP® Culture System II for Johne’s fecal culture was a seamless one.

After a brief trial period using one ESP Culture System II instrument, we moved to para-JEM full time – adding six more units – in June of 2005. Within five months we reached capacity in those units, and last November we acquired two more, bringing our current total to nine ESP instruments. Currently, we test an average of 500-650 samples per week, so you can imagine our elation this past June when we received the new para-JEM Windows Software!

Our weekly specimen numbers have increased substantially over the last two years.

For some time Ohio has had a Johne’s Status Herd program, and recently we adopted the RiskAssessment/Management Program (RAMP), which provides free Johne’s testing for cattle owners who perform a risk assessment of their farm and adopt standardized management practices.

Our State veterinarians have done an outstanding job educating practitioners and owners across Ohio. The results of their efforts is reflected in our specimen numbers and, hopefully, in the eventual decrease in the incidence of Johne’s on our farms.

In the meantime, our brief experience with the para-JEM Windows software has been fantastic. The expansive report fields allow us to input our acid-fast and PCR results so that all of our testing information is localized on one platform. With this capability it will be much easier to perform case studies to assess the status and progress of individual farms.

TREK’s Technical Support and R&D managers are available 24/7 to assist with any questions that may arise. For example, upon installing the new software we noticed a large percentage of bottles signaling positive within a few hours of incubation. After dialing into our system, TREK Technical Support quickly discovered an enabled pre-incubation algorithm that needed to be disabled. A few clicks resolved the problem, and our instruments are running smoothly.

Thanks TREK, for all your assistance, and for the new software!