PALAKKAD: While cattle brought into the state are sometimes found to be infected with foot and mouth, anthrax, bovine brucellosis diseases, the border checkposts of the animal husbandry department are yet to gear up to meet contingencies.Palakkad district has nine border checkposts, including Attappadi, through which cattle arrive in the state.
The checkposts at Walayar, Meenakshipuram and Muthalamada see the maximum influx of animals. But a full-fledged infrastructure to offload disease-stricken animals from vehicles and to quarantine them for surveillance is lacking at the checkposts because of the unavailability of land, said an official with the animal husbandry department. “The dairy animals need to be monitored the most for diseases. The farmers purchase them at a huge cost of `70,000 to `1 lakh. While the cattle transported for meat will be culled within a few days, the risk of transmitting diseases is more in dairy animals,” said Dr K M Ravi, assistant rinderpest officer at the Walayar checkpost. He said the department owns land at both Walayar and Meenakshipuram.
“Land is being identified in Kozhippara too. In Muthalamada, there is space to tie around 10 animals for quarantine purposes,” he pointed out. The department is planning to set up an integrated checkpost with more infrastructure, doctors and technicians. Apart from cattle, ducks, swine, poultry, horses and other animals also arrive through the checkposts. The aim is to ensure specific animals are brought into the state through specific checkposts to make inspections more effective, said an official.
“When there is an outbreak of the foot and mouth disease, which is viral in nature, the animals transported across the border have turned out to be the carriers. Once the integrated checkpost at Walayar is commissioned, diseases like swine flu, duck plague and avian influenza will also be tested at the labs there,” said the official.
However, the chances of anthrax spreading from dead wild boars to domestic animals, as seen in Athirappally, are minimal, the official added.The integrated checkpost is being set up as part of the implementation of the Prevention and Control of Infectious and Contagious Diseases in Animals Act, 2009, which was accepted by the state government in 2014.