Last May, HIPRA Benelux organized the 2nd Mastitis Prevention Day for Belgium.

152 professionals registered for this one-day online event which dealt with all aspects of mastitis in Belgium. Along with Startup MEXcellence.eu, HIPRA brought together 16 speakers from 14 organizations to illustrate the complexity of Belgian cows’ udder health.

Mastitis Prevention Day

Following the first Mastitis Prevention Day meeting in 2018, 152 Belgian professionals gathered to listen to local experts and stakeholders speak about mastitis. Losses of up to 90 million euros is what Pr. Sarne De Vliegher calculated as the impact of mastitis on the Belgian dairy sector.

After a striking keynote presentation on the aspects of udder heath, it was clear that both clinical and subclinical cases are important when assessing the udder health status of a farm.

With regard to milk quality, Belgium reaches an average of 200,000 cells/ml (195 in Flanders), which makes Belgium a favourable target for selective drying-off.

Clinical mastitis affects 30-40% of Belgian dairy cows

As the policy for the reduction of antibiotic use in dairy cows progresses, the main conclusion of the udder health data session was that the average herd can move towards an adaptive treatment strategy and enhanced prevention, with a particular focus on the transition period.  

Indeed, it was clear from both CRV and AWE that contamination during drying-off and the heifer period are critical keys for a healthy herd.

From the perspective of ARSIA, MCC and CDL, as shown by bacteriology or PCR, E. coli and Streptococcus uberis are the dominant pathogens in clinical cases, whereas Staphylococci are in the majority in subclinical cases.

From a broader perspective, only 10% of clinical cases are sampled, so increasing diagnosis is also a strong key for future prevention programmes.

From HIPRA’s perspective, this means that 75-87% of clinical cases could be prevented by vaccination. AMCRA (antibiotic stewardship organization) and the Belgian Food Safety Agency made it clear that mastitis was the major key to reducing antibiotic consumption, and prevention and selective treatments are essential in future.

Therefore, a team approach, adaptive treatment and Immunity management are the 3 main keys for the years to come for reducing this historical disease. As a conclusion to the day, most organizations were saying the same thing: “We need to adapt”. We concluded this successful day with the launch of our new campaign “In Mastitis management, PRE is the new PRO”