The highlight of the event was the seminar with Seoul Milk Veterinary Association, the biggest milk quality association around Seoul and satellite cities. During this seminar, Dani Zalduendo (HIPRA Brand Manager) emphasised the trend towards antibiotic reduction in Europe, a concern which the Korean government now also shares.
Seoul Milk Association president Dr. Gyu Ro Lee agreed “Concerns are increasing amongst governments and customers as we are seeing more antibiotic residues and resistance in our field today and vaccination will be another great strategy that we can use to ensure our milk quality for our customers”. Daniel Zalduendo (HIPRA Brand Manager), along with Jae Choi (Asia Regional and Technical Marketing Manager, HIPRA) also shared their experience of contagious and environmental mastitis with special focus on vaccination as a tool for prevention.
During the presentation, they showed that the prevalence rate identified with STARTCHECK® (HIPRA's diagnostic programme based on PCR technique) was close to 20% in the case of S. aureus and around 75% in the case of E.coli and coliforms, which suggested that Korea is also following the ‘environmental trend’ in Europe. This result attracted a great deal of attention from all the participants, as veterinarians and farmers have always placed a great deal of emphasis on S.aureus control and they agreed that there is a great need for the control of environmental pathogens.
STARTVAC® is the first and only polyvalent vaccine against bovine mastitis registered by the Korean authorities and with this new launch, HIPRA continues to strengthen its commitment to prevention in animal health and also to the improvement of milk quality in Korea.
