Johne's disease has been one of the notifiable diseases since 1971 in Japan and all the detected animals are culled compulsorily with compensation by the government. The annual reported cases started to increase in 1980s and reached more than 200 by 1996. Therefore, in addition to this passive surveillance, active surveillance has been in action following the amendment of the Law in 1997.

In the active surveillance, all the targeted cattle had to be tested at least once in every five years. Infected cattle are practically detected the ELISA of two sequential positive results (56%), the agent isolation by fecal culture (41%) or the microscopic confirmation of the agent in fecal samples from animals with clinical signs (3%). Affected farms are subject to the monitoring for a certain period to assure the free status of the disease by periodic testings.

Since the active surveillance started, the number of annual cases reached more than 1,000 in 2004, and then it shifted to about 800 and 1,200 in 2005 and 2006, respectively. However, this trend was influenced by the difference in intensiveness of the surveillance each year in each prefecture and nationwide annual detection rate (number of detected cattle / number of tested cattle) has been stable as 0.1-0.2%.

The government has organized the Johne's Disease Advisory Committee since 2005 for evaluating epidemiological situation of the disease and advising on its control measures.