Drug debacle

Sixteen years after India banned the veterinary use of diclofenac to save its vultures, three other drugs revive the old challenge

- SHUCHITA JHA

ON MARCH 14, the Bombay Natural History Society, India's oldest biodiversity conservation group, wrote a letter urging the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) to ban the use of three veterinary drugs known to kill vultures in the country.

The letter warns that the rampant use of the three non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) threatens to undo the Centre's two decades of work to arrest the dwindling vulture population in the wild. Surprisingly, the three drugs—aeclofenac, ketoprofen and nimesulide-were introduced as alternatives to diclofenac, the NSAID that India banned in 2006 for animal use because it caused widespread vulture deaths (see "The fatal four', p44).

“Deaths caused by NSAIDS are invisible. Birds die two-three days after ingesting the medicine, making it difficult to establish a clear link," a says Chris Bowden, co-chair, Vulture Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He says India has slowed down vulture mortality rate, but not stabilised the population.

Vultures were quite common till the 1980s. Currently, eight species in the country face extinction, says Rinkita Gurav, manager, raptor conservation, World Wide Fund for Nature, India. The country's vulture population crashed from over 40,000 in 2003 to 18,645 in 2015, as per the last vulture census conducted by intergovernmental body Bird Life International.

Even diclofenac, which is only permitted for human use, is being misused for cattle treatments. "Such treatments are usually prescribed by quacks," says Vibhu Prakash, deputy director, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

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