Chakwal: Rizwan Abid, a dairy farmer, seemed distressed while trying in vain to make his precious bull stand up. The bull, sitting under the scorching sun, could not get up, since he suffered from a standing and mouth disease, a highly contagious viral disease causing ravages in Punjab during the last two months.
The disease has emerged in the province just before Eidul Azha, leaving buyers and vendors in a stake. Since cattle markets throughout the province were not closed to contain the disease, it has spread to many districts.
“I have lost a cow and four calves due to this disease, and now my bull is fighting for his life,” Abid told Sunrise. His cattle corral is located on the outskirts of Chakwal, where he is raising 13 animals, including cows and buffalo. According to him, no government veterinarian visited his place for vaccination.
Ironically, Chakwal’s livestock department is not even aware of the ravage scale that the FMD has been causing in Chakwal and Talagang. “Only one case has been reported so far from the village of Tamman, Talagang, where the fifteen animals were affected by the disease,” said the additional director Dr. Sohail Manzoor Sunrise. Of dawn The investigation, however, revealed that almost all the villages of the two districts have been affected by the disease.
For example, in Murid Village, two cows and four calves owned by the Lamp Far Jaffar Abbas died. “The loss of my animals has broken my back, since my two cows were valued in RS 1 million,” Jaffar Abbas told Dawn.
His neighbor Ahmed Khan was managing medicine to a cow when this correspondent reached his penalty pen. “My cow is not eating its fodder or drinking water due to a disease,” said Ahmed Khan SunriseOpening his cow’s mouth to show his blistering tongue.
Qazi Farooq cattle feather is just one kilometer from the office of the livestock and Farooq department has lost seven animals due to the disease. In the same town, eight of 24 animals owned by Ashir Ali are sick for the same reason.
In the village of Dhakku, the herd of goats and sheep owned by Aftab Ahmed has been seriously affected by the disease, while its five cows are still sick. In Dhudial, the dairy farmer Syed Asad Abbas lost a novilla and Mohammad Arif in Murid Village lost three calves because of the Afitase fever. Many other farmers belonging to different villages also confirmed the prevalence of the disease in their cattle.
Last week, Mehran Aziz de Dhakku brought his sacrifice bull to the market and demanded RS 350,000, but the animal could not reach the desired price and had to bring it back. Days later, El Toro contracted the Afitase fever.
Meanwhile, cows that survived the disease are still staggering the replicas.
“A cow, which was giving twenty liters of milk, now only produces three to four liters; it is also afraid that pregnant cows abort, while infants could not enter the stan cycle,” a veterinarian told Sunrise.
The former cattle deputy director, Dr. Muhammad Riaz, who is the most wanted veterinarian in Chakwal, said Sunrise which had attended more than 150 FMD cases during the last and a half months.
“The disease is still present in many villages,” he said. “… The mortality rate in large animals used to be just one percent in the past, but this year it killed large animals in significant quantities,” he revealed.
He said that vaccination must be performed by a separate working group that must be completed in a short period of time. “But, unfortunately, the campaign is carried out by the same veterinarians who treat infected animals. In addition, disposable syringes and appropriate equipment are not used, and this practice causes the spread of the disease instead of controlling it,” said Dr. Riaz.
When he contacted, Dr. Sohail Manzoor, the additional director of LDD, said he would analyze the problem. “Strict measures would be taken against those employees who did not report the cases of the Aphyosa fever,” he said, adding that vaccination had been carried out at different access points of Chakwal and Talagang, where he had witnessed in the past.
Pakistan is among the few countries that can still not control the Afitase fever, despite the high statements of federal and provincial governments. According to a report prepared by the Development Department of Punjab cattle and dairy development (LDD), Pakistan faces an annual loss of $ 6-8 billion in the sector won due to the Afitosa fever. This fatal disease also remains an important obstacle in the export of Pakistani meat to the world’s main markets.
Meanwhile, at the governmental level, efforts are insufficient to counteract this disease.
The feet and mouth disease research center in LAHORE produces 10 million doses of feverish vaccine annually due to the limited budget and obsolete technology, while the annual demand exceeds 80 million doses in the province, said the LDD report.
The Livestock Department has been using two vaccination strategies for the control of Afitase fever in Punjab since 2017.
In South Punjab, mass vaccination has been underway since 2017 to make the region a disease -free area, while ring vaccination is carried out in case of an outbreak in other parts of the province.
Ironically, South Punjab has not been free of FMD, since the current outbreak was first informed in different southern districts.
Posted in Dawn, June 7, 2025
