article · Journal of Veterinary Medical Science
An assessment of 250 dairy cattle across five farms in El Oro Province, Ecuador, revealed that mastitis is widespread. Subclinical mastitis affected 60 percent of the animals, whilst clinical mastitis was identified in 12 percent. Across individual udder quarters, the overall prevalence reached 57.7 percent, occurring more frequently in forequarters than in hindquarters. Microbiological examination showed distinct bacterial profiles between the two disease forms. Coliform bacteria were the most frequent cause in clinical cases, followed by coagulase-positive and coagulase-negative staphylococci. In contrast, coagulase-negative staphylococci predominated in subclinical cases, followed by Bacillus species and streptococci. Laboratory testing confirmed that all isolated bacteria remained fully susceptible to several standard antibiotics, including amoxicillin, ampicillin, cefotaxime, enrofloxacin, gentamicin, neomycin, and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, with no multidrug-resistant strains detected in the sampled herds.
Mastitis impairs cow welfare and reduces milk yields in dairy operations. Because subclinical infections show no obvious udder changes, high herd infection rates can easily go unmanaged without active screening. Establishing which bacteria drive local infections, alongside confirming their susceptibility to widely available veterinary antibiotics, provides essential evidence for veterinarians and farmers seeking to maintain animal health and dairy productivity.
The abstract does not indicate an application pathway or commercial product pipeline. It delivers applied surveillance data that veterinarians and dairy managers can immediately reference to select effective antibiotic treatments and design herd monitoring protocols. As purely observational and descriptive veterinary research, this work does not represent a technology near market, but rather informs routine farm health management practices.
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This study described the occurrence of clinical and subclinical forms of mastitis in 250 cattle from 5 dairy farms around the cities of Santa Rosa and Machala, El Oro Province, Ecuador. Clinical mastitis (CM) was determined based on obvious changes in milk (mild), signs of inflammation in the udder (moderate), and/or generalized clinical symptoms (severe). Subclinical mastitis (SCM) was assessed using the California mastitis test. CM and SCM were detected in 30 (12.0%) and 150 (60%) of the 250 tested cattle, respectively. Prevalence at the udder quarter level was 57.7% (577/1,000), which was higher among forequarters (369/577; 63.9%) than hindquarters. Of the 577 mastitic milk samples subjected to microbiological analysis, 35 were excluded due to contamination and 20 tested negative. Identification of bacterial isolates revealed that 33.3% of the 93 CM samples contained coliforms, 25.8% coagulase-positive staphylococci, 20.4% coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS), 9.7% streptococci, 7.5% Bacillus spp., and 3.2% Klebsiella spp. Bacterial profiling of the 429 SCM milk samples showed that 55.4% contained CNS, 22.1% Bacillus spp., 9.3% streptococci, and 6.1% coagulase-positive staphylococci. In vitro antibiotic susceptibility testing of the obtained isolates indicated that all were susceptible to amoxicillin, ampicillin, cefotaxime, enrofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, gentamicin, and neomycin. No multidrug-resistant strains were observed.
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DOI: 10.1292/jvms.17-0504
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