NDRI works on animal immunity
Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, November 10
Scientists of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) have achieved another milestone in improving the immunity of the livestock to a great extent.
Scientists have conducted research on five projects funded by the Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi, on the first line of defence cells (neutrophils) of livestock for around 12 years.
During this research, the scientists worked on calving stress, as well as on mastitis, metritis diseases, and other disease-related aspects. They also found that neutrophils are capable of detecting the presence of sperms during insemination as well as an implantation of embryo in the female reproductive tract. Besides, they have isolated blood and milk neutrophils from healthy and diseased animals, on which further studies are being carried out, the director added.
“Amid Covid crisis, we always talk about immunity. In case of animals, we treat them with the use of apophatic medicine, but the immunity aspects are very important. Our scientists have already initiated work and achieved success also. Supplementation of antioxidants, including vitamin A, E and trace minerals (zinc) have been found to increase the immunity of animals,” Dr MS Chauhan, Director, NDRI, said.
He said the immunity enhancement had reduced mortality rate by 20-25 per cent. Besides, it will further increase milk production, improve health and ensure timely calving.
Dr Ajay Dang, principal scientist, lactation and immunophysiology laboratory, who has conducted the research, said neutrophils were the first line of cellular defence against invading microorganism.
“During an infection, neutrophils can quickly move through the walls of blood vessels and into the tissues of the body to immediately attack or monitor the foreign organisms. Neutrophils help to heal damaged tissues and resolve infections. Their levels in blood increase naturally in response to infection, injuries and other types of stress in dairy animals.” “We have seen that at calving, when the animal is under stress, there is an increase in immature neutrophils and their killing capacity of bacteria also decreases mastitis etc,” Dr Dang added.
