Efficacy of lysigin vaccine in the prevention of mastitis in dairy cattle [electronic resource]

Includes references.

Mastitis is one of the biggest expenses for the dairy industry which has a substantial impact
on dairy cow health. Preventing new infections in cows is the best strategy to manage
mastitis. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a commercially available S. aureus
bacterin (Lysigin) on minimizing the rate of mastitis in a dairy herd. A total number of 600
Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were involved in the study and received two doses of the
vaccine. The enrolled animals were monitored for clinical signs, bacterial culture, somatic
cell count (SCC), and costs utilized for treatment during the study. The rate of clinical and
subclinical mastitis was reduced from 13% and 29% to 6.7% and 18.3%, respectively after
one year following vaccination. Composite milk samples from infected cows were
examined for bacteriological isolation of S. aureus and E. coli. S. aureus and E. coli mastitis
were determined in percentages of 25% and 30.9%, respectively. Following immunization,
S. aureus and E. coli mastitis were decreased to 10% and 23.3%, respectively. The decrease
in the rate of E. coli may be related to farm hygiene and environmental management which
has a detrimental effect in the control of coliform mastitis. The SCC on milk samples from
animals with chronic infection significantly decreased after vaccination. Furthermore, a
reduction in bulk milk tank SSC (BTSSC) was detected in the herd during the study. The
application of vaccination has a greater impact on reducing the costs utilized for the
treatment of mastitis in the herd. These findings indicate that the Lysigin vaccine has a
protective effect against S. aureus mastitis and can be utilized as an additional approach
for the management of mastitis.

Keywords: Clinical mastitis, Dairy cattle, Lysigin vaccine, S. aureus, Somatic cell count, Subclinical mastitis