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Researchers of the Ruminant Health Group of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Murcia (UMU) have provided advice to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for the development of the National Plan for surveillance, control and eradication of contagious agalactia (2018- 2020).

A disease that affects numerous herds and with high socio-economic impact in the sheep and goat sector.

It is the first time that a state program is established, although it is a widespread disease in Spain.

With this plan, all farmers and livestock associations that are assigned through their autonomous communities, will obtain a document accrediting the Administration, which will officially certify the health status of the same against this disease.

Contagious agalactia is an infection that, in sheep and goats, is caused mainly by the bacterium Mycoplasma agalactiae.

Its most frequent symptoms, as explained by the UMU researcher Christian de la Fe, "are the presence of arthritis and mastitis, directly affecting milk production, although occasionally cases of conjunctivitis, abortions or respiratory problems, the latter in younger animals. "

However, the endemic state of the infection in Spain causes that "in many of our flocks there are no symptoms at first sight." The infection has become chronic and manifests mainly in the form of subclinical mastitis, that is, milked milk is normal simple sight, but when analyzing it the presence of these microorganisms is detected and, sometimes, a high count of inflammatory cells that show that the animal suffers this infection ", concludes the professor.

Control in breeding and insemination centers

Although there are tools for the treatment and control of this infection, through the use of antibiotics and vaccines, they are not entirely effective.

Antibiotics do not eliminate the agent in the infected animal, and the use of vaccines does not prevent infection.

Contagious agalactia does not affect humans;

but it does affect the profitability of ruminant farms, since an affected herd has a depleted production and is a permanent source of infection for others.

A special situation is experienced in the sheep and goat artificial insemination centers.

In them they concentrate a high number of stallions, of genetic value, from which the seminales doses are elaborated that are used in the herds for the artificial insemination.

When the infection affects the stallions, it directly affects the functioning of the breeding centers.

This makes it necessary to establish preventive measures and follow a control protocol, one of the lines where the most recent investigations of this group are focused.

Although sanitary controls are carried out against different diseases, the tests carried out against contagious agalactia probably were not sufficient to detect all the infected animals.

"Thanks to these investigations have begun to take complementary measures to detect these animals and remove them from the group, because there is a potential risk of infection," says De la Fe. For this has worked with many of the artificial insemination centers of the country and with different races such as the Murcian-Granada goat or the malagueña, and sheep breeds like the sheep Assaf, the manchego, the churra;

and even meat breeds like the segureña.

The works developed by this team have allowed to establish guidelines for permanent monitoring in these groups.

Based on the analysis of all the animals that are candidates to enter the breeding centers and the annual control of the animals already in them, they support a service that does not operate commercially.

"The most interesting is that the results obtained have been applied directly in the development of the National Plan that is already underway, a program that is already being implemented in communities such as the Castilla-León Regional Government, a pioneer in its development or Castilla La-Mancha, adjusted to the particularities of these communities ", summarizes the researcher.

The research of the Ruminant Health Group of the UMU is focused on the epidemiology and control of the disease: how it is transmitted, what are the sources of infection or what species it affects.

Likewise, they work in the study of the mechanisms of resistance of these species to antibiotics and in the development of molecular biology techniques that allow to know the dynamics of the infection.

All this has served to publish frequently in Veterinary Microbiology, Theriogenology or The Veterinary Journal.

Contagious agalactia is included in the unique list of diseases of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

This project has been developed based on a project of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain, co-financed with FEDER funds (AGL2013-44771-R), among others.

Source: Universidad de Murcia