Paratuberculosis is a rapidly spreading, costly disease which is gaining an increasing importance in Italian dairy herds. In a study including 81 dairy herds in an area near the Italian Alps, a total of 1198 animals were tested by a commercial ELISA. In 62 of these herds the presence of at least one positive animal was observed, in 11 herds at least one doubtful animal was found, while only 8 herds had no positive or doubtful animals. Overall prevalence among adult animals was 19%. On the basis of these results a pilot voluntary control program has been developed aiming to gradually decrease the prevalence of the disease in participating herds, without having to impose a costly and labour-intense program. The program starts with a risk assessment evaluation, and then farmers are invited to implement management strategies to prevent transmission of disease. Animals are tested before parturition by a commercial ELISA test and based on likelihood ratios they are classified in different categories. Doubtful and light negative animals are re-tested after parturition by ELISA and RealTime-PCR; animals still resulting negative are considered as negative while animals resulted doubtful or positive in this second round are considered positive and their removal is recommended. The pilot program, started one year ago, was implemented in 2 herds, while from the beginning of the current year 10 herds have been already enrolled in the program. The preliminary results available from the pilot study showed that, by using the double testing, we have been able to identify in the second round 4 out of 12 doubtful animals as positive in herd A while in herd B 3 out of 12 doubtful animals and 3 out of 29 light negative animals were positive.