In dairy industry, quality of produced milk must be more important than quantity without a high somatic cells count (SCC) or pathogens causing mastitis of dairy cows and consumer diseases. Preserving the good health of dairy cows is a daily challenge for all involved in primary milk production. Despite the increasing level of technological support and veterinary measures, inflammation of the mammary gland–mastitis, is still one of the main health problems and reasons for economic losses faced by cow farmers. The mammary gland of high-yielding dairy cows requires making the right decisions and enforcing the proper measures aimed at minimizing external and internal factors that increase the risk of intramammary infection. Due to the polyfactorial nature of mastitis related to its reduction, the effectiveness of commonly used antimastitis methods tends to be limited and therefore it is necessary to find the areas of risk in udder health programs and monitoring systems. Only by implementing of complete udder health programs should be accompanied by research efforts to further development these complete udder health control. The present review analyses the current knowledge dealing with damping and prevention of mastitis include SCC control, proper nutrition, housing and management, milking and drying as practiced in dairy farming conditions. This information may help to improve the health of the mammary gland and the welfare of the dairy cows as well as the production of safe milk for consumers.

Twenty Staphylococcus aureus strains from patients with toxic shock syndrome (TSS) and 20 from control patients (non-TSS) with infection but no clinical evidence of TSS were compared phenotypically in a collaborative, blinded, randomized study. TSS strains were significantly (P less than 0.05) more likely than non-TSS strains to produce various previously described but related toxic shock-associated proteins (pyrogenic exotoxin C, enterotoxin F, and TSS marker protein), as well as differing in other distinctive phenotypic characteristics, such as hemolysis, bacteriocin susceptibility, arsenate resistance, pigment production, and casein proteolysis. TSS strains were significantly less likely to carry plasmids than control strains. A combination of two variables--proteolysis and toxic shock-associated protein production--statistically accounted for all other phenotypic variations between TSS and non-TSS strains. Only proteolysis covaried with all other significant variables, suggesting a primary role in the phenotypic distinctiveness of TSS S. aureus strains and possibly in the pathogenesis of TSS.

Experiment we carried out on the herd of 115 Slovak Pied dairy cows. Were realized three collections of individual milk samples for isolation and identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS). We collected 341 milk samples. Coagulase - negative staphylococci were isolated in 18.8 % (64). Highest number of CNS we isolated from acute, subclinical, subacute and latent forms of mastitis, respectively. S. warneri (2.88 %), S. chromogenes (17.19 %), S. cohnii (15.63 %) and S. xylosus (14.06 %) was isolated in highest percentage. Was detected presence of 7 virulence factors, include production of staphylococcal enterotoxins, and resistance for antibiotics. S. chromogenes, S. warneri and S. xylosus were detected as most virulent species carrying most virulence factors, and were resistant for most species of tested antibiotics (S. xylosus resistant for N, NV, L, P, E; S. chromogenes, S. sciuri for 4 species of antibiotics). There pathogens were isolated from acute forms of mastitis. 

doi:10.521/186

Early identification of mastitis is a serious challenge for dairy farmers and veterinarians in ensuring the health of an animal and the hygienic quality of the produced milk. The purpose of this study was to detect the occurrence and aetiology of mastitis in a dairy herd of 15 milked cows localised in a farm in west Slovakia. During the complex investigation, 606 quarter milk samples were examined (6 quarters were discarded) and classified based on the clinical status, the presence of abnormal udder secretions, the result of the California mastitis test (CMT), the somatic cell count (SCC) and the bacteriological identification of the pathogens causing the intramammary infection (IMI). The study was augmented by the detection of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the milk and the measurements of the blood enzymatic activities of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) as potential biomarkers for the udder health screening. A positive CMT score was recorded in 19.5% (118) of the examined quarters and 12.5% (76) of the quarters were infected with bacterial pathogens causing latent mastitis (LM; 1.3%), subclinical mastitis (SM; 8.3%), and clinical mastitis (CM; 2.9%). The most commonly isolated bacteria from the infected quarters were coagulase-negative staphylococci (55.2%), Staphylococcus aureus (11.8%) and streptococci (10.5%). The concentration of MDA and SCC were significantly higher from both the SM and CM cases than in the milk samples from the healthy cows, while the blood activities of SOD and GPx were lower in the cows with CM compared to the healthy cows. The higher MDA concentrations in the SM and CM milk observed in this study showed the presence of an oxidative stress in the infected milk, accompanied by a decrease in the antioxidative enzymatic activity in the blood of the cows. Therefore, the measurement of the milk MDA concentration and the activity of the blood SOD and GPx may prove insightful for the better screening of the udder health in the early diagnosis of mastitis.