RESISTANCE TO AVAILABLE ANTIBIOTICS IN LACTATING COWS WITH MASTITIS
PROGRESS TO DATE – 17 August 2015
Funding of project
The project has been funded but funds only recently became available.
Use of funds
The project is currently well under budget with the biggest expense to date being the student stipend for the MSc student on the mastitis survey project, Nicolene Schlimmer. As a consequence,
Nicolene will be paid her graduate stipend in arrears as of April, 2015. She is receiving R3000 per month. We are fortunate that the MSc student on the SCC project, Alf Lategan, is a practicing veterinarian requiring no stipend. No payment has yet been made to the Milk Laboratory at
Onderstepoort. Towards the end of the year the first major expenses will be incurred as the herd visits needed to verify the survey results & to obtain more detailed information commence.
Culture & sensitivity testing of organisms isolated from mastitic milk samples
Milk Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Onderstepoort
Co-workers: Joane Karzis & Inge-Marie Petzer
Status: Has commenced with the banking & testing of mastitis milk samples (abnormal milk). Testing is being done at the cow level. To follow is the collection of samples &/or data from other milk testing laboratories such as Deltamune, Allerton & VetDiagnostix.
Variation of SCC, including by season, by region & by herd type (grazing vs. TMR) nationwide: a retrospective.
MSc (Epidemiology) student: Alf Lategan (registered).
Status: Data has been made available by Stamboek/Logix. A valid database is being created by
Bobbie vd Westhuizen of Stamboek/Logix. This followed a meeting at Onderstepoort on July 6 attended by Alf Lategan, Bobbie vd Westhuizen, Geoff Fosgate, Peter Thompson & Martin vd Leek.
Determining the context in which mastitis treatment failure occurs / State of the art
regarding mastitis treatment & prevention in South African Dairy herds

This survey will have 2 distinct components – epidemiology (vd Leek, Schlimmer & Nielen) & economics (Hogeveen & Leenaerts).
There are two epidemiology advisors that have joined the program: Mirjam Nielen, Professor,
Department of Farm Animal Health at Universiteit Utrecht & John Grewar, MSc (Vet Sci), State
Veterinarian: Epidemiology at Western Cape Dept Agriculture.
Primary MSc student: Nicolene Schlimmer, UP.
Supporting MS student: Leen Leenaerts for a Master Programme "Management, Innovation and Life
Sciences - Decision Support & Economics - Business Economics" at Wageningen UR, Wageningen,
Netherlands.
Status: The design of the survey is well advanced & the first draft should be completed by the end of
September. Thereafter it will be submitted to interested industry parties for review & refinement. It is anticipated that the survey will be presented to the members of the MPO in October. There will be an initial telephone sampling followed by herd visits late this year &/or early in 2016.
Comment
High SCC problem peculiar to the Eastern Cape
There is a unique problem occurring in the Eastern Cape. Louis Hoek BVSc (Hons) of CapeCross
Veterinary Services, Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape has also registered for an MSc (Epidemiology) & will be preparing a proposal to address this issue. Although not part of the original proposal it is hoped that this project might be entertained given the level of funds in reserve.

CO-WORKERS
Henk Hogeveen, Professor Animal Health Management at Wageningen University https://www.linkedin.com/pub/henk-hogeveen/1a/780/86a
Publications: http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/list?wq_inf1=p1014252&A114=1014252&wq_inf_heading
=Publications%20of%20DR.IR.%20H%20Hogeveen
My job consists of teaching Animal Health Economics to students at
BSc or MSc level, both at Wageningen University and at the Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University. My research is directed on the crossroads of animal diseases (mostly production diseases), economics, epidemiology and animal welfare.
Leen Leenaerts, MSc student https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenleenaerts
I have an interest in animal production and management and often worked on the dairy farm of my parents. Because of this interest I started the Bachelor of Bioscience Engineering - Agricultural
Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven (BE) in 2011. To give my bachelor a more multicultural and international direction, I did an internship in Indonesia related to the feeding of lambs. Right after this I also joined the Erasmus program and went to the
University of Hohenheim (DE) where I tried to put the focus as much as possible on livestock production. After getting my bachelor degree
Bioscience Engineering - Agricultural Sciences (Cum Laude) I wanted to gain more economic/business knowledge and decided to follow the
Master Programme" Management, Innovation and Life Sciences -
Decision Support & Economics - Business Economics" at Wageningen
University (NL), which I'm still following now. I finished my courses and am now working on the economics part of the mastitis prevention project as part of my thesis.
Mirjam Nielen, Professor, Department of Farm Animal Health at Universiteit Utrecht http://www.uu.nl/staff/MNielen (including publications)
Chair Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine. The aim of this chair is to develop, carry out and apply clinical epidemiologic research as basis

for evidence-based veterinary care and to translate such evidence into clinical guidelines. The chair will focus on veterinary decisions for individual patients (often companion animals or horses) as well as for groups of animals (often production animals).
Alf Lategan (BVSc) https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alf-lategan/ab/b7b/aa1
After a few years in general practice around the world, I co-founded
CapeCross Veterinary Services in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
My aim is to apply Veterinary Dairy Science to every day farming life and integrate the science with daily operations. All the more taking the profitability of the enterprise in mind.
I aim to run the business based on sound ethical and even moral principles and wish to leave clients with easy to apply up to date solutions to production and general animal/herd health. I also aim to grow CapeCross into a competent cutting edge group of practices that can provide a holistic service to our clients.
Visit www.capecross.co.za for more information or to contact us.
Nicolene Schlimmer (BSc Agric Hon)
Nicolene Schlimmer is an MSc student at the University of Pretoria. She completed her BSc
Agricultural Animal Science degree in 2013 and started with her MSc Animal Nutrition degree in
2014. She successfully completed her first year of theory in monogastric and ruminant nutrition.
Growing up on family game farms, Nicolene always had a passion for animals. Since getting more involved with livestock in her field of study, she discovered her love for dairy cattle. She was fortunate in being selected for an MSc project involving dairy cattle and has the incredible privilege of working under Dr Martin Van der Leek, veterinarian and senior dairy lecturer at the faculty of
Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria. Together they are working with Prof Henk Hogeveen and one of his students, Leen Leenaerts from Wageningen University in the Netherlands to try and determine why, despite all the time and effort spent in preventing and controlling mastitis, these efforts are failing and mastitis still remains a major health concern in the dairy industry. Nicolene currently resides with her parents and three furry kids in Benoni. She attended school in Benoni, matriculating from Hoërskool Brandwag in 2007. When she’s not busy working on her MSc project, she spends time with her boyfriend, family and friends. She enjoys sport and being outdoors, often travelling to take part in swimming and cycling races all over the country.

Inge-Marie Petzer, UP
Joane Karzis, Research Associate at Milk Laboratory, UP https://www.linkedin.com/pub/joanne-karzis/96/259/11b
Publications: http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/81/browse?value=Karzis%2C+Joanne&type=author