Chennai, July 15(BPNS)

The Animal Husbandry departments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala have commenced vaccinating the livestock near the Anaikati border after a cow elephant was found dead due to Anthrax in the Anaikati forest area.

The Tamil Nadu veterinary department and the animal husbandry department are vaccinating livestock including cow, goat, buffalo, and ox in the areas of an 8 km radius from the Anaikati forest area. The veterinary department is cautious as the elephant which died due to anthrax would have taken water from the nearby water bodies.

Three teams of livestock, inspectors were formed under veterinarians of Anaikati, Thudiyalur, and Matharui to visit farms and houses in Sembukkarai and Mangarai to vaccinate domestic animals.

According to the Animal husbandry department officials around 500 doses of vaccines were earmarked for the livestock and the department is taking extra precautions even though there has not been an anthrax case reported among the domestic animals since 2016 when a cow died of the disease.

The department also said that the death of the elephant due to anthrax is the first case in the forest areas under the Coimbatore Forest division for the past four and half years.

Frontline workers of the forest department and the veterinary and animal husbandry departments are pressed into service to sanitise the forest area in a radius of a few kilometers from where the carcass of the elephant that died due to anthrax was found.

The Coimbatore Forest Division in Tamil Nadu and the Palakkad forest division in Kerala are conducting joint patrolling on whether any other wild animals have died in the forest bordering the Anakati area due to anthrax.

Kerala veterinary department and Animal husbandry department are also in the process of vaccinating domestic animals in farms and homes near the border areas.