Lesser pandemic?

A new viral infection in cattle sweeps across India, threatening one of the largest rural economies

- SHAGUN KAPIL, K A SHAJI IN KERALA, AJIT PANDA  AND ANUPAM CHAKRAVARTTY.

A STRANGE BUT familiar fear prevails over the village of Kammana in Kerala’s Wayanad district since the beginning of the year. It was much like what the residents experienced around the same time last year, when the state reported India’s first covid-19 case. This time the virus is different and so is the host, but the disease is equally contagious, unknown, stealthy and debilitating.

“I don’t know how and when three of my five Jersey cows contracted the disease,” says Saji Joseph, a resident of Kammana. All of a sudden in the first week of January lumps started appearing on their body accompanied by high fever. Within a week, they have become emaciated, says Joseph, adding that he loses ₹700 a day because of reduced milk yield. In this village of mostly dairy farmers, 200 other households face the same predicament. Even infected bulls and buffaloes are unable to pull carts or perform farm activities. Local veterinarians have identified it as lumpy skin disease (LSD), a viral illness that causes prolonged morbidity in cattle and buffaloes. It appears as nodules of 2 to 5 cm diameter all over the body, particularly around the head, neck, limbs, udder and genitals. The lumps gradually open up like large and deep wounds. In some cases—under 10 per cent as per the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)— infected animal succumbs to the disease. While the LSD virus easily spreads by blood-sucking insects like mosquitoes, flies and ticks and through saliva and contaminated water and food, veterinarians say no treatment is available for the disease, which is being reported for the first time in India.