HARIPUR: Lumpy skin disease (LSD) continues to take heavy toll on the farm animals as the authorities failed to control the epidemic even after a lapse of two months, causing an increase in the death ratio of cows in Haripur district, farmers and official sources said here on Saturday.
“The disease is now out of control and could infect the buffaloes if the situation remained unchanged for another couple of weeks,” said an official of Veterinary Hospital Haripur while requesting anonymity.
The farmers and officials said that the LSD’s outbreak was reported from different villages of tehsil Ghazi and Haripur during the month of June and initially over 200 cows were diagnosed as LSD carriers but the infection rate among cows shot suddenly after the Eid ul Azha.
Businessmen dealing with sale and purchase of farm animals brought truckloads of sacrificial animals from Punjab that was worst affected by LSD that time, source said. The official source added that the reported cases registered with local veterinary health facilities were over 900 out of the total population of 1,74,000 cows in the district and the statistics of unreported cases of infection were feared to be double as the farmers have the tendency to avoid informing the veterinary staff out of certain fears. Paniyan, Bhera, Mir Pur, Kahal, several villages of Ghazi and Khanpur tehsils were the most affected with LSD, according to the source and farmers.
When contacted, District Director Livestock Dr Sohrab confirmed the gravity of the situation caused by LSD in Haripur. He said that currently 800 plus cows were under treatment and over 120 had died.
About the treatment and precautionary measure, Dr Sohrab said that 27,000 cows and bulls had been vaccinated against the LSD with available vaccine that was supplied for Haripur with the efforts of local elected representatives and on the directives of Director General Veterinary Health Dr Alam Zeb Khan
He said that the farmers must take some measures on their own for the protection of their animals that included daily cleaning of ranches with phenyl, anti-flies and mosquito spray.