Virus kills 100,000 cattle in India, threatens livelihoods

A viral disease that is spread by insects like mosquitoes and ticks has killed at least 100,000 cows and buffaloes in India and sickened more than 2 million

A viral disease has killed nearly 100,000 cows and buffaloes in India and sickened more than 2 million others.

The outbreak has caused huge loss of income to the livestock breeders because the disease not only leads to deaths but can also lead to reduced milk production, lean animals and childbirth problems.

This disease is called nodular skin disease,

It is spread by blood-drinking insects such as mosquitoes and ticks.

Infected cows and buffaloes develop fever and swelling on their skin.

Farmers have suffered huge losses from extreme weather events over the past year: a record-breaking heat wave in India knocked down wheat yields in April,

Lack of rainfall in eastern states like Jharkhand has caused dry winter crops like pulses to wilt and unusually heavy rains in September have damaged rice in the north.

And now the virus has spread to at least 15 states, with the number of cow and buffalo deaths nearly doubling in three weeks.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Devinder Sharma, an agricultural policy expert in northern Chandigarh city, said the spread of infection among livestock is having a disproportionate impact on small farmers, many of whom have insulated themselves from the shocks of climate change by raising livestock for milk.

“It is a serious and serious issue and this (disease) ... has been increasing since the last two years,” he said, adding that government figures are likely to be understated the actual number of deaths from the disease.

The first cases were discovered in South Asia in 2019, and have since spread to India, China and Nepal.

It was first recorded in Zambia in 1929 and spread across Africa and more recently to parts of Europe.

Dairy products are among India's largest agricultural commodities, employing 80 million people and contributing 5% of its economy, according to federal data. It is the largest milk producer in the world,

They make up more than a fifth of global production - but exports are only a small part of that.

To try to protect the industry, authorities are vaccinating healthy cows with a syringe designed for a similar disease while efforts are made to develop a more effective vaccine.

India's vast hinterland is now peppered with mass graves of cows.

In some places, corpses rot in the open and the cries of sick animals echo in the villages.

The western state of Rajasthan experienced the worst impact: 60,000 head of cattle died and nearly 1.4 million became ill.

“The disease is contagious. It is now transmitted from west to east,” Narendra Mohan Singh warned,

Director of Animal Husbandry Department of Rajasthan.

In the state of Uttar Pradesh bordering Uttar Pradesh, which is the most populous in India, the trade and movement of livestock with neighboring states has been curbed. But farmers like Amarnath Sharma in the village of Milkipur say they have been left in the dark. Three of his five cows are sick,

While he's heard about the viral illness, he doesn't know how to help his livestock.

"If these animals don't get treatment, they will die," he said.

Farmers in affected states, such as the Himalayas in the Himalayas, have also urged the government to provide financial aid.

while,

Studying the genetic makeup of the lumpy skin disease virus found it to be very different from previous versions, said Vinod Skarya, a scientist at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi.

Viruses evolve all the time and not all of these changes are harmful to health. But Sakarya, one of the study's authors,

She said it revealed the need for continuous monitoring and tracking of diseases as it was not clear how the virus had developed in the past two years.

“If you have constant monitoring, you will be prepared,” he said.

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