Kerala - Kottayam   

Foot-and-mouth disease in Kottayam

KOTTAYAM: A two-member team from the Southern Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (SRDDL), Bangalore, visited the foot-and-mouth disease-affected villages in the district on Friday.

According to Dr. K C James, Joint-Director, Animal Husbandry, senior scientists Dr. Venkitesh and Dr. Giridhar visited six of the affected villages and collected blood samples, swab and samples from the affected portions of the animals for analysis.

“We suspect strain variation of the virus affecting the animals in the current outbreak and are waiting for the results,” Dr. James said.

According to him, the samples would have to under go analysis as to which type and subtype of the virus had caused the disease, and it would take up to a month to get the results.

With the death of a cow being reported from Kudavachoor, the situation had taken a serious turn. According to Dr. James, more than 400 cows in the villages of Aymanam, Arpookkara, Chengalam, Vechoor, Thlayazhom,

Manjoor, Kallara, Athirampuzha and Kumarakom on the western low-lying areas of the district were affected by the disease.

It being a viral disease, the authorities were providing only symptomatic treatment.

What made the situation complex was the fact that the Animal Husbandry Department had just concluded a vaccination drive which had successfully vaccinated nearly 85 per cent of the animals in the district.

Usually, when an outbreak occurs, the first step would be to provide a protective belt by vaccinating the animals in the nearby villages and thereby preventing the spread of the disease.

Since a vaccination drive had been undertaken recently, another round of protective vaccination was not under consideration, Dr. James said.

Foot-and-mouth disease spreads through the air and the vaccination has been provided for the normal strains of viruses.

However, the State was facing a complex situation as a large number of animals were brought in for slaughter from across the State. If any one of them was affected by the disease caused by a new variant of the virus, the efforts taken so far to prevent the disease through vaccination would become ineffective, he said.

The waterlogged western areas had been prone to foot-and-mouth disease earlier also with similar outbreaks reported in 2003 and 1996, Dr. James added.

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