Therapeutic efficacy of Mastacure and its effect on cellular immune response in buffalo mastitis
Abstract
The study was conducted with respect to prevalence of sub clinical mastitis (SCM) by cultural examination and somatic cell count (SCC), assessment of therapeutic efficacy of Mastacure, a homeopathic medicine in buffalo mastitis, and to compare the cellular immune response of normal and mastitic animals along with the effect of Mastacure in modulation of immune response. Prevalence rate on the basis of cultural examination alone was 13.48 per cent of the buffaloes and 7.90 per cent of the quarters examined. Streptococcus agalactiae was the most predominant organism isolated. Five buffaloes having sub clinical mastitis were subjected to mastacure treatment for 20 days. Before treatment out of 20 quarters, 12 culturally positive quarters revealed isolation of Str. agalactiae (9) and S.
aureus (3). On day 5 post treatment 83.33 per cent of the quarters revealed bacteriological cure which on day 10 and 20 post treatment decreased to 75.00 and 66.60 per cent, respectively. Again on day 30 post treatment bacteriological cure rate reached to 83.33 per cent. However, there was persistence of Str. agalactiae and S. aureus in one quarter each. The difference of mean SCC from five sub clinical mastitic buffaloes (175.20+38.30x104/ml) and five healthy buffaloes (20.4+3.76x104/ml) before the start of treatment with mastacure and on day 5 post treatment was found to be statistically significant, whereas on day 10, 20 and 30 post treatment this difference in mean SCC+SE per ml was not found statistically significant.
On flow cytometry, milk from mastitic buffaloes revealed significant increase in BoCD4+ and BoWC1+ T cells as compared to normal buffaloes (P<0.05). An increase was also recorded in BoCD8+ cells of mastitic buffaloes as compared to normal buffaloes but this elevation was not significant (P>0.05). In mastitic milk BoCD8+ were present in higher proportions than BoCD4+ T lymphocytes. After administration of homeopathic medicine, down regulation of BoCD8+ T cells was observed in milk from mastitic buffaloes on day 5 and then there was gradual increase which was found significant (P<0.05) on day 20. Significantly (P<0.05) higher percentage of BoCD4+ lymphocytes on day 5, 10 and 20 were found in the milk of mastitic buffaloes. This up gradation was highly significant (P<0.01) on day 5 post treatment. BoWC1+ T lymphocytes in milk of mastitic buffaloes showed marked increase from day 5 to day 30. However, significant up gradation was encountered only on day 20 (P<0.01).