Researchers have developed a simple, inexpensive testing kit that dairy farmers can use to test for mastitis infection in milk.
It will save farmers money and prevent them from mixing infected milk with safe milk. Mastitis reduces milk quality and yield.
The disease is a constraint to dairy production and may account for 70 to 80 per cent of the total losses in milk production.
“This is a simple kit where the farmer just puts a drop of milk on orange litmus paper and observe colour change,” said Peter Njuguna, a researcher at the Veterinary Research Institute at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro).
Kalro developed the test.
“If it changes to blue, then the farmer will know the disease is there. If the colour of the strip remains the way it is, orange, then there is no disease,” the researcher said.
The technology known as a pH-based pen-side mastitis kit is made from absorbent paper affixed with chemical indicators.
It is inexpensive, only Sh12 a strip, and is sold in boxes of 50 or 100 strips. It should be on the market in two or three months.
Bovine mastitis is an inflammation of the udder tissue in the mammary gland caused by trauma or infections. It is the most common condition leading to economic loss in dairy industries.
Njuguna said the disease occurs in two forms-clinical mastitis that can be seen with the naked eye-and the subclinical mastitis, which cannot be detected with the naked eye.
“Clinical mastitis can be easily detected and treated, unlike subclinical mastitis, in which the milk is usually visibly normal, but the concentration of milk somatic cell count (SCC) is increased [usually around 200,000],” data from KALRO showed.
Njuguna said pathogens of subclinical mastitis are identified from milk samples processed for bacteriological testing.
The current diagnostic approaches require technical expertise, thus the need for an affordable easy-to-use diagnostic technology that can be used by farmers.
Symptoms of mastitis include udder swelling, tenderness and thickening of udder tissue or a udder lump.
Other symptoms are pain or a burning sensation, skin redness, often in a wedge-shaped pattern and a fever of 101 F (38.3° Celsius) or greater.
If the disease is present, the farmer can discard the milk because if it’s mixed with healthy milk, it may well be rejected by the cooperatives.
Njuguna said the kit will enable active involvement of farmers in diagnosis and control of mastitis.
If mastitis is detected, the farmer should milk the infected cow last to avoid transmitting the disease to the healthy animals.
The kit is currently at the level of registration. “Once we register it with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, we will commercialise it and it will be available to farmers,” Njuguna said.
“We already have a potential partner who will do mass production. After that, it will be available to farmers and will be out in the next two months.”
The kit seeks to help reduce milk rejection at the collection point and early detection of the disease.
“When the disease occurs, you actually discard that milk. So it helps to prevent huge losses,” Njuguna said.
“Once you prevent this disease, then the hazards of veterinary costs are also reduced and there will be money in farmers’ pockets."