The pigeon occupies a prime place in urban India. Across India, pigeon feeding is quite popular. On my way to office at Shantipath every day, I used to find vast quantities of maize strewn all over the road and the dividers with flocks of pigeons having a feast. The NGT should ban the feeding of birds (‘Sunday Special’ – “The pigeon paradox: Feeding them could be bad for your lungs”, Sept.4). In Toronto, Canada, for example, there are signboards asking people not to feed birds.
T. Sampath Kumar,New Delhi
Instances of human pulmonary conditions that have been associated with pigeon proximity have been known to occur from early times in Kerala. In fact erstwhile aristocratic families fancied pigeon keeping as a tradition and a hobby and were known to pass away after contracting mysterious diseases. Rather than it being a case of Hypersensitive Pneumonitis, it could be more a case of contracting the zoonotic fungal disease, cryptococosis. Several types of fungi are present in pigeon droppings that can spread in the environment and transmitted to children and the elderly as well as immunocompromised patients who are at increased risk of contracting opportunistic diseases. Perhaps pulmonologists can keep an eye out for fungal diseases as well.
E. Mathew,Thrissur
