Birds spread anthrax in Chhattisgarh zoo

Red alert in 5 km area surrounding zoo

Raipur/Bilaspur, January 17

Chhattisgarh forest department has come up with new angle in deaths of 22 female spotted deer in Kanan Pendari Zoo near Bilaspur city as principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Ramprakash feels that anthrax infection would have spread in the zoo due to birds carrying the deadly bacterium Bacillus anthracis. He, however, failed to explain why the lethal disease attacked only female deer. To prevent anthrax outbreak in the locality, the forest department has sounded red alert in 5 km area surrounding the zoo.

Ramprakash informed that teams of health and veterinary departments would examine health of humans and animals living within alert zone by collecting their blood samples. Besides, a special team has been assigned the task to examine the health of 354 wild animals belonging to 54 different species in the zoo.

This team had earlier confirmed that the deer died due to anthrax infection after collecting their 20 different samples including blood, ear, food, water, soil, etc. It is learnt that the forest department would also send these samples to Indian Veterinary research Institute Izzatnagar, Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh) to find out other causes of deer deaths.

The forest department has also constituted a three member committee comprising DFO Bilaspur Hemant Pandey, Achanakmar Tiger reserve deputy director CL Agrawal and veterinary surgeon PK Chandan to further probe the matter. Ramprakash said the zoo will remain close for ten days.

The medical experts think that the zoo should remain close for at least one month so that health teams could thoroughly examine health of humans and animals during this period. They also advise the local administration to take proactive measure to check diffusion of anthrax infection beyond alert zone.

These experts informed that in 90 percent cases, humans infected by anthrax die in 2-7 days. The symptoms of anthrax are respiratory problem, fever, stomach ache, skin infection, etc.

Meanwhile, opposition Congress in State has flayed the ruling BJP for not taking incident of deer deaths seriously. Terming it criminal negligence, the PCC spokesperson Shailesh Nitin Trivedi has demanded high level probe into the matter. He said it was an irony that despite CM Raman Singh holding forest department, the relevant officials posed negligence towards health of spotted deer.