Transmission Dynamics of Corynebacterium spp. Within Two Danish Dairy Cattle Herds

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Intramammary infections (IMI) can cause mastitis, a prevalent and costly infectious disease in dairy cattle worldwide. The IMI is caused by a range of bacteria, including Corynebacterium spp. Knowledge of the transmission dynamics of pathogens is generally sparse but essential to support decision-making; such as input to bioeconomic models. In this observational study, we explored the transmission dynamics of Corynebacterium spp. in two different Danish dairy cattle herds by testing monthly quarter-level milk samples of all lactating cows for 1 year. We estimated the prevalence for herd 1 and 2 to 24 and 11.7%, respectively, and the mean quarter-level incidence to be 8 and 6.5% per month, respectively. We compared a model for indirect transmission via the environment with a model with the direct contagious transmission and found that the latter model best explained the data. We estimated the daily mean quarter-level transmission rate to be 0.016 and 0.018 cases/quarter-day for herd 1 and 2, respectively. The mean recovery rate was 0.012 and 0.016 for herd 1 and 2, respectively. Consequently, the basic reproduction number for herd 1 and 2 was 1.27 and 1.10, respectively. This study highlights that Corynebacterium spp. can be prevalent within a herd and transmit directly between cows. Thus, future studies should investigate cost-effective control measures against Corynebacterium spp.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer735345
TidsskriftFrontiers in Veterinary Science
Vol/bind8
ISSN2297-1769
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2021

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
We thank the participating farmers and the teams from SEGES, Registrerings- og Ydelseskontrol (RYK), Skejby, Denmark, for helping with data acquisition, and Silke Hechinger, Karen Schlez, and Tobias Eisenberg at LHL laboratories for bacterial culture and identification (LHL, Gie?en, Germany), and Lasse E. Christiansen (DTU Compute) for discussion. Funding. This project was funded by the Green Development and Demonstration Program (GUDP) under the Danish Directorate for Food, Fisheries and Agriculture (Copenhagen, Denmark), Grant No. 34009-15-0918 (EMCo-MAST project). The study design, data collection, sample testing, data analysis, and writing the manuscript was funded by GUDP.

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© Copyright © 2021 Kirkeby, Halasa, Farre, Chehabi and Græsbøll.

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