Lumpy Skin Disease: care and prevention
Do you care for dying cows and cattle? Then you must be knowing the current situation of cattle in India. Do you want to know about the recent virus spread among cattle? Lumpy Skin Disease Virus is the culprit behind it. What can we do to control this spread and how to treat lumpy virus? What Homemade medicine can be given to infected cows? If you have these burning questions in you mind , then do read this whole article.
In the In recent times, there is an rise in cattle death because of a cow virus outbreak. People who have cattle as their source of income are very horrified because of this. People in urban areas don’t know much about this disease, but rural population of India has been heavily affected by the Lumpy Skin Disease Virus. This spread is being called as corona virus attack of animals.
It spreads through vectors like mosquitoes and other blood feeding insects. Lumpy meaning is cow gets lumps on the skin. As the disease progresses, these nodes or lumps get filled with pus and are very painful to the cattle. Other symptoms of Lumpy Skin Disease in cattle are fever, sudden weight loss, loss of appetite in cow etc. This cow virus was first seen in Zambia in the year of 1929. Since then the epidemic of this virus is causing death of cow and cattle in many Asian and African countries.
To know what is Lumpy Skin Disease Virus in detail, you can check out the article by clicking on the link below.
https://www.manishmevada.com/2022/09/lumpy-disease-causes-spread-symptoms.html
Now let’s understand more about cure of lumpy Skin Disease and ways of prevention of the same.
Spread of Lumpy virus
Lumpy virus has infected large number of cattle in India. Deaths are reaching new heights as this new variant of lumpy Skin Disease Virus is more infections and deadly. Everyday 30 to 40 cows are dying in Gujarat due to this infection. Reason for the spread of Lumpy virus is heavy rain. The water logging has caused breeding of insects and that in turn has lead to spread of virus.
The high rate of death is majorly seen in cross breeds of cows. The desi breeds of cow are showing better immune response to the virus and are getting healed in 4 to 6 weeks.
Can human get infected by cow virus?
Since the recent outbreak of lumpy virus in India, the question lingering on people’s mind is can human or other animals can get affected by the cow virus? Answer to this question is a No. By now there aren’t any cases registered of human infection by lumpy virus. Also no other animals like cats, dogs etc. are seen to be catching this virus. So it is quite safe for humans to serve the infected animals. Of course precautions should be taken, as there are secondary bacterial infection seen in lumpy Skin Disease. This might cause problems to human nearby. So one should always wear mask and gloves when going near to the infected cows.
Then comes a question, is milk of infected cow safe for humans?
My answer would be a Yes. The Lumpy Skin Disease Virus is not pathogenic to human. So even if there are viruses present in milk, it would not infect humans. But one should always Pasteurize or boil the milk before consumption. Because there might be other bacteria that can be problematic to us.
What to do if my cow is having lumpy skin disease?
If your cow or cattle is showing symptoms of Lumpy skin disease, then please follow the points below. This will help to cure the cattle as well as to stop the spread.
Reach out to nearest veterinary doctor: On the onset of symptoms like fever etc., Don’t start any home remedies, but contact the veterinary doctor first. They might give antibacterial medicine as well as paracetamol to reduce the symptoms.
Call 1962: Indian government has provided a free helpline number to help farmers. If you find your cattle having cow virus Symptoms, you can call this helpline number 1962, they will help you out to manage the disease.
Desi medicine for treatment of cow virus
There is no treatment in any medicine field to cure lumpy Skin Disease completely. But some remedies can help to heal the symptoms. Some such remedies are what I have received from a veterinarian. Please do it after talking to the doctor. This medicine can only help to manage the wounds on the skin as well as it will stop from further infection through that node.
- Boil same amount of alum and neem leaves in water. Bath all animals with this warm water. This will help remove the virus from skin area.
- Make paste of alum powder and neem leaves, and apply it on the wounds of infected cow.
- Take 25 g of turmeric, 50g black pepper, 100 g jaggery and 100 g ghee, make laddu/balls of these and make the cattle eat these. You can also add bajra flour and make roti if cattle doesn’t eat laddu.
But always remember, this is not the treatment. So always take advice from the veterinary doctors for the betterment of your cattle.
What actions are being taken for lumpy virus?
There is no effective prevention for the lumpy Skin Disease spread. But a vaccine is showing promising results in cows. Goat-pox vaccine is being used for Lumpy virus prevention. Because goat-pox virus and this recent lumpy virus belong to same family, their behavior is similar. Hence the goat pox virus is found to be effective against the virus.
It has been a big loss of cows and cattle in India already. So the government has started taking interest into the disease control. Goat pox vaccine are being produced in bulk as there is a rise in the demand. Already 11 lac doses of goat pox vaccine have been given to cattle and cow in India. National Dairy development board has provided 28 lac doses of goat pox vaccine to Gujarat government. Other state governments like Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have placed orders of these vaccines to private companies providing the same.
Prevention of Lumpy Skin Disease
As of now there is no accurate treatment available to cure the cow virus. This has lead to approximately 50,000 death of livestock in India. And there are lacs of cow under isolation. This has given huge loss to farmers and dairy industry. So prevention is the only way through which we can sail our boats and save the cows.
- Early detection and steps: as soon as a cattle gets the symptoms, it should be isolated from the herd. The cattle in the surrounding should be vaccinated to the earliest.
- Sanitization of cattle shed: all cattle shed should be thoroughly sanitized to avoid breeding of virus.
- Removal of insects: blood feeding insects are the vectors for the cow virus. So they should be discarded from the cow shed. Farmers know the best ways to do this , for example, burning neem leaves etc. Insecticides should also be sprayed do that mosquitoes don’t breed.
- Dead animal due to this infection should be burnt immediately. After the incineration, the area should be thoroughly disinfected.
Cow and cattle are very precious to humans and this earth. Crores of families have been affected by the loss of cattle and loss of income in turn. It is our to help the animals and farmers to go through these tough times. All you need is to share this article to everyone, so that the awareness can be spread. I hope you have gathered enough information about Lumpy Skin Disease Virus through this read. Do spread this word too.
Thank you for reading!
Stay healthy! Stay happy!
Manish Mevada
This article is very useful for me sir because of my two cows are infected from lumpy skin desease.
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