Vol. 11, Special Issue 2 (2022)

Author(s):
Krupa Rose Jose and K Vijayakumar

Abstract:
Mastitis is considered to be the most costly disease in dairy herds in terms of treatment costs, loss of milk production, early culling and death. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most frequently encountered contagious pathogen responsible for mastitis. The present study was carried out in 83 clinical cases of bovine mastitis wherein, the majority of animals affected with mastitis were aged above five years (63.86 per cent) and had calved more than four times (26.5 per cent). Nearly half of the affected animals were in the mid stage of lactation (40.96 per cent). Milk samples collected from 83 affected quarters were subjected to cultural and biochemical characterisation and 49 isolates (59.04 per cent) were presumptively identified as Staphylococcus spp. Among 49 isolates obtained, all the isolates amplified the 756 bp fragment specific for the 16SrRNA of Staphylococcus spp. whereas only 21 isolates amplified the 1318 bp fragment specific for the 23SrRNA of S. aureus. In conclusion, a simple and rapid PCR-based assay was standardised for the molecular detection of S. aureus from bovine clinical mastitis.