LAHORE: The Department of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Lahore in collaboration with Punjab Agriculture Research Board (PARB) and Orient Traders International arranged a daylong workshop on “Targeted Mastitis Therapy & Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Control: The Power of on-farm Culture Systems” here on Thursday at Veterinary Academy of City Campus Lahore.
UVAS Vice-Chancellor Meritorious Prof Dr Muhammad Younus (DLA.I, T.I) presided over the concluding session of the workshop and distributed certificates among participants & shields among resource persons while Dean Faculty of Life Sciences Business Management Prof Dr Rana Muhammad Ayyub chaired the inaugural session.
Director Institute of Microbiology Prof Dr Aftab Ahmad Anjum, Chairman Department of Veterinary Medicine Prof Dr Muhammad Ijaz, Prof Dr Arfan Ahmad, Chief Organizer Workshop Prof Dr Muhammad Avais and a number of academicians, practicing vets, researchers, dairy farm managers, professionals, representative from pharmaceutical industries, students and faculty members were present.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof Dr Muhammad Younus lauded the organizer to arrange this workshop on burning issue of mastitis management to enhancing profitability of livestock farmers and strengthen dairy sector in Pakistan.
Prof Dr Rana Muhammad Ayyub said that mastitis disease causes financial losses to farmers, therefore, it is dire need to target the problems of livestock farmers. He said this workshop will not only provide knowledge and practical training to farmers and staff on the identification of the mastitis disease in dairy cattle, but will also lead to increase in milk production and make farmers prosper. Prof Dr Rana Muhammad Ayyub appreciated the efforts of the organizer for organizing the workshop on this informative topic and said that I hope that in this training workshop the participants will get the opportunity to learn about practical knowledge related to mastitis control, on-farm diagnostic methods and treatment from experts.
Prof Dr Aftab Ahmad Anjum said that such workshops are necessary for gaining innovative knowledge & sharing experiences especially for the learning of farmers and dairy farm workers regarding the techniques of on-farm culture system for the diagnosis of disease for treatments of sick animals without wastage of time.
Earlier Prof Dr Muhammad Avais spoke about the aims and objectives of the workshop. He said that aims of the workshop were to build the capacity of veterinarians, dairy farmers and industry professionals/stakeholders in the use of rapid on farm culture systems for the early accurate and targeted management of bovine mastitis. He said objectives of the workshop were to raise awareness about growing threat of antimicrobial resistance in dairy herd and indiscriminate antibiotic use in mastitis treatment, introduce & promote the application of rapid on farm culture systems for pathogen-specific mastitis diagnosis, enabling selective and evidence based antimicrobial therapy, demonstrate evidence from field studies on how timely and targeted treatment improves animal health, maintain milk quality, provides hands-on training in setting up and operating on-farm culture lab including proper sample collection, interpretation of culture and to creating a platform for sharing field experiences, challenges and innovation in mastitis management through a one health lens.
Various aspects discussed during the daylong workshop were related to anti-microbial resistance in dairy herd a growing threat, evidence based mastitis management using rapid on-farm culture systems, udder hygiene gateway to better milk quality & mastitis prevention, setting up and managing an on-farm culture lab, material SOPs, sample collection and hands-on PCR, identification of AMR genes in mastitis pathogens etc.
