THARPARKAR: Peacocks in Sindh’s Tharparkar district continue to suffer from the fatal ranikhet disease, while the wildlife officials remained unable to prevent the disease from spreading.

Forty-one peacocks have been confirmed dead within a week, while hundreds more continue to suffer from the fatal disease, which continues to spread unabated.

Nine villages of Tharparkar’s Nagarparkar, Mithi and Diplo tehsils are affected by the ranikhet disease, which affects peacocks, according to a team of local journalists.

Eight peacocks were carried off by the lethal disease in Nagarparkar’s Dedveero and Soorachand villages. Meanwhile, the disease carried off two peacocks in the Mithi tehsil’s village Jagge Jo Tarr.

Thirty-one peacocks were confirmed dead in Diplo’s six villages, including 13 in Sujai and four each in Keerlo and Daabri villages.

When a team of journalists arrived in Mazkora village, the wildlife officials fled with four peacocks suffering from the disease in order to hide their incompetence. The villagers told the journalists that the officials had ordered them to bury the dead peacocks, saying that not doing so would result in the disease spreading further.

When contacted, the wildlife department refused to acknowledge that their officials had fled with the sick peacocks.

The villagers also informed the mediapersons that the disease had originally started from the chickens owned by the villagers and was later transmitted to the peacocks.

Peacocks affected with the ranikhet disease experienced dizziness and stiffness before dying.

Regarding the peacocks’ deaths in Thar, the wildlife department maintained that the peacocks were dying in large numbers due to the intense heat and thirst, adding that the ranikhet disease was nonexistent in the desert district of Pakistan’s Sindh province.