Clinical and Subclinical Mastitis in Ruminants: A Review of Etiological agents, Diagnosis, Clinical Management and Risk factors

Abstract

Ruminant mastitis is a welfare and economic problem of livestock and the dairy industry. It is a major animal health problem in countries where livestock are raised for the purpose of milk production. This Review focuses on ruminant mastitis, etiologic agents, diagnostic test and associated risk factors. In this narrative review, a comprehensive literature search of all relevant articles was performed to identify articles published in Science Direct, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, LISTA and AJOL. English articles published from 2010 to 2023 were reviewed and used. The findings revealed that even though Staphylococcus aureus, Non-aureus Staphylococci species, and Streptococci are the major mastitis pathogens. Others like Escherichia coil, Klebsiella, Citrobacter, Enterobacter, Pseudomonas, Proteus, Serratia, Bacillus, and Corynebacterium etc were isolated from milk samples. Diagnosis was observed to be based on observation of milk and cardinal signs of inflammation of the mammary glands, the use of diagnostic test, like bacterial culture, Strip cup test, White side test (WST), Surf field mastitis test (SFMT), and California Mastitis test (CMT). Molecular typing techniques including PCR, Sequencing, MALDI-TOF MS, MLST, PFGE, spa typing etc have also been observed important role in characterizing agents of mastitis. Major risk factor observed is age, parity and stage of lactations. Clinical management of this condition in ruminants is based on the understanding of the etiology, and treatment options.