#SaveCows is trending on Twitter as the Indian livestock battles the Lumpy Skin disease. According to the animal husbandry department data furnished on Monday, 59,027 cattle have died due to lumpy skin disease and 13,02,907 have been affected. A total of 10,80,967 animals in the state have been vaccinated.
However, the efforts seem to go in vain as the number of infected cattle keep rising day by day. Vaccine effectiveness is being speculated as scientists identify the species affecting cattle to be structurally different from that in 2019.
Scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) and the State Disease Diagnostic Centre, Jaipur analysed five animals with symptoms of the disease and compared genomes of the virus extracted from them. Six genomes (there were multiple genomes from a single animal) showed that it had “little similarity to global genomes” when compared with genetic sequences from earlier outbreaks of the disease.
BJP on Tuesday staged massive protests in Jaipur demanding immediate attention by the state government into the death of cattle. Concerns have been raised in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh as the milk producing capacity of the cows is deteriorating impacting the dairy business tremendously.