Lumpy skin disease is not a normal viral outbreak. A coordinated effort is needed

Source: The post is based on the article “Lumpy skin disease is not a normal viral outbreak. A coordinated effort is needed” published in Indian Express on 7th September 2022.

What is the News?

Lumpy skin disease(LSD) has infected around 11.25 lakh cattle, caused nearly 50,000 deaths and spread to 165 districts in 12 states. Despite this, there seems to be no coordinated national effort for dealing with this viral outbreak.

What is Lumpy Skin Disease?

Click Here to read

What are the steps that need to be taken against Lumpy Skin Disease?

Firstly, step up the supply of goat pox and sheep pox vaccines. Since LSD belongs to the same capripoxvirus genus, these vaccines can provide at least partial cross-protection against the former even if that is specific to cattle. At present, only the goat pox vaccine has been approved for administering to cattle against LSD. The same may be extended to sheep pox vaccines.

Secondly, the government must expedite the commercialisation of the ICAR’s Lumpi-ProVacInd vaccine. It could consider granting emergency use authorisation to enable large-scale production and roll-out, similar to that for Covid vaccines. 

Thirdly, the vaccination should be done on mission mode with the push coming from the top and not the department of animal husbandry and dairying.