Prevention and Treatment of Mastitis with Probiotics

Mastitis continues to be the most important economic risk for dairy farmers, accounting for about 40% of the total direct costs of the common production diseases. This technology is a biological approach to mastitis prevention based on a special combination of probiotic bacteria, leading to a protection against the majority of pathogenic bacteria for mastitis.

Challenge

Current treatment, both for prophylaxis and therapy, rely heavily on antibiotics, which is costly and frequently ineffective due to the overuse of antibiotics in veterinary medicine resulting in antibiotic resistance. Recent legislation in the EU are restricting the use of antibiotics in animals leading to greater controls and limitations in their use. Thus, there is an unmet need for alternative therapies.

Our Solution

Scientists at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover developed a probiotic teat dip as an active way to protect the teat ends against pathogenic bacteria. The special formulation is based on a combination of non-pathogenic probiotic bacteria, which protects the teats against major pathogens of mastitis.

Source: J-H. Paduch

Advantages

Combination of probiotic non-pathogenic bacteria for more effective protection against majority of pathogenic bacteria for mastitis.
Probiotics actively colonize teats to form a protective barrier.
Special formulation as teat dip with prolonged survival of probiotic bacteria.
Showed significant reduction of pathogens as well as of somatic cell counts in an initial field test.
Showed significant reduction of mastitis cases on hifers in an initial field test.
Probiotic bacteria can be produced cheaply and in large quantities.
Probiotic foodgrade organism with GRAS status, hence no withholding periods for the milk as in the case of treatment with antibiotics = no milk losses!

Applications

Natural, effective alternative to antibiotic therapy for prevention and treatment of mastitis.
Can be applied as teat dip or other formulations.
Particularly effective during the dry period.

Developmental Status

In vitro and in vivo proof of concept in a first dairy farm field study.

Patent Status

A European patent has been granted and validated in DE, FR, GB (Patent owner: University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover).

References

EP3004399B1

Contact

Dr. Stefan Uhle
Patent Manager Life Science
E-Mail: suhle(at)sciencebridge.de
Tel: +49 551 30724 154
Referenz: BioC-1553-HsH

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