KARACHI: The livestock department has started the process of vaccinating cattle against lumpy skin disease on Monday as the total number of LSD cases reached 32,256 with 336 mortalities in the province.

Officials said the LSD situation had not improved in several districts with Karachi being the only affected area since the outbreak that had shown significant drop in the number of cases.

According to the official data, all districts in Sindh are affected with Karachi reporting the largest number of cases (17,814) since the disease outbreak last month followed by Thatta (4,653), Hyderabad (844), Sujawal (513), Tando Mohammad Khan (876), Badin (1102), Sanghar (908), Shaheed Benazirabad (818), Khairpur (819), Kambar Shahdadkot (698), Dadu (456), Jamshoro (765), Thana Bola Khan (1,028) and Choondiko (496.)

“Cases have reduced in Karachi whereas the situation hasn’t changed in districts, such as Thatta, Sujawal, Khairpur, Sanghar and Kambar-Shahdadkot,” said Director General-Livestock Dr Nazeer Kalhoro.

Livestock director general says one jab is enough to protect cattle for up to two years

He added that localised conditions were contributing to the spread of the disease in certain districts.

The less-affected districts included Tharparkar, Kashmore, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Ghotki, Sukkur and Larkana.

About the vaccination process currently under way, Dr Kalhoro said it’s being carried out free of cost and that teams had been instructed to wait for at least 10 to 15 days to conduct vaccination at an affected farm.

“It’s a live virus vaccine that can aggravate the outbreak if caution is not adopted and vaccination is carried out indiscriminately,” he said.

“Also, cattle that have recovered from the disease wouldn’t be vaccinated as they have developed life-time immunity against LSD,” he explained.

1.1m vaccine doses arrived

Meanwhile, 1.1m doses of skin disease vaccine out of the 1.9m doses planned to be imported in the initial phase reached Karachi airport from Turkey on Saturday evening.

According to the livestock department, the rest will arrive on Friday (April 8) whereas another batch of 1.9m doses would be imported in phases as soon as funds are released.

The livestock director general said that no skin disease case had been reported in buffalo in Sindh.

One vaccine shot, he said, was enough to protect cattle from the disease for at least one to two years.

“We have been producing all types of poultry and livestock vaccines except that of foot-and-mouth disease and LSD for a long time. Now, we have started the process to develop LSD vaccine independently that will help reduce its cost significantly,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2022