Mastitis in Small Ruminants

Bacterial mastitis in small ruminants is a complex disease, with massive economic loss in dairy sheep/goat industry due to poor productivity. The current mastitis prevention strategy relies on culling of infected ewes or does and or the use of antimicrobial agents to eliminate the bacterial infection. This has a potential risk for developing antibiotic resistant bacteria, posing human health risk from consumption of raw sheep or goat dairy products. Existing experimental and licensed vaccines on the market are ineffective against reducing the risk of mastitis in herds or flocks. Raising the needs for development of improved vaccines against mastitis for use in sheep and goats. This review examines, current understanding of the pathological processes and immunological responses against bacterial mastitis, using S. aureus as an example. By highlighting the protective defense mechanism induced in the udder against S. aureus mastitis. Based on evidence from published studies on pathological process and protective immune response mechanism, the need for improved vaccines for prevention of mastitis in small ruminant is highlighted and the development of a vaccine capable of enhancing immune response mechanism, that reduce the establishment of intramammary infection through induction of local IgA, IgG2 and Th17 immune responses is proposed.