LUCKNOW: Death of 87 pigs in two pig farms in the past three days due to unknown reasons has created panic in the Faizullaganj area of the city. Experts said the pigs suffered paralysis and subsequently died.
While locals apprehend that the deaths may be due to some disease, officials of the animal husbandry department said that exact reasons will be determined after blood tests of the carcass.
However, Ram Kumar, owner of one of the farms, said that he suspects that the deaths could be due to sprinkling of some chemicals in drains for killing mosquitoes and pests.
According to the residents, the area has over two dozen farms with a population of about 10,000 pigs. It started on Wednesday, when 39 pigs in the farm of Ram Kumar in Millatnagar locality of Faizullaganj were struck by paralysis and died within 24 hours. In a similar way, 21 pigs in Ram Kumar’s farm and another in adjoining Shyam Vihar died on Friday and 27 casualties on Saturday.
Ram Kumar buried all the carcass in his farm itself on Wednesday. However, when more deaths occurred on Friday, Deepak Kumar, a local, called the Lucknow Municipal Corporation’s helpline, but got no response. On Saturday, a social activist, Mamta Tripathi, tweeted the complaint with photographs of the carcass and tagged the mayor and municipal commissioner.
Thereafter, officials of the LMC and health department swung into action and inspected the area. The carcasses were exhumed and the pigs which died on Saturday were buried in an open ground in the nearby Triveniganj area.
Chief veterinary officer, Lucknow, DK Sharma, said, “Since the post-mortem examination remained inconclusive, we have sent blood samples of a carcass to National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal, for tests.” He, however, denied the possibility of African Swine Flu saying that symptoms don’t match with that of the disease.
District health surveillance officer Dr Milind Vardhan said that health workers will collect blood samples of the locals on Sunday to analyse for the presence of any harmful pathogen.
Municipal health officer Dr SK Rawat appealed to citizens of the area not to go near pigs and asked farm owners to wear gloves and masks while handling pigs.
