HARIPUR: With the buying of sacrificial animals gathering momentum ahead of the Eidul Azha festival, which is just over a week away, visitors to a livestock market here on Thursday claimed to have seen several head of cattle infected with lumpy skin disease on the premises.

They, however, said owners took those animals away after they threatened to report those cases to the market administration.

The livestock department has already warned cattle farmers against selling animals either infected with the skin disease or carrying its symptoms.

The administration has set up a cattle market for Eid near the Khalabat Town Road on the outskirts of Haripur city.

Visitor Mumtaz Khan said he saw eight cows and bulls with symptoms of LSD in the cattle market and took pictures of a bull infected with the disease.

He said he informed officials of the tehsil municipal administration about those animals for action, but to no avail.

“I later called some journalists, who took pictures of infected animals and informed cattle vaccinators at the entrance. However, owners disappeared along with their animals,” he said.

Another visitor said a cattle farmer claimed that he bought a bull in Punjab without knowing it had LSD symptoms and that its slaughter would cause him dearly.

When contacted, district livestock director Dr Sohrab Ahmad Malik said workers of his department were deployed at all entry points of the district as well as the livestock market to spray animals with pesticides but it was difficult to examine every animal when they were loaded onto trucks and vans for transportation and the same could be the case with a couple of LSD-hit animals brought to Haripur.

He, however, said he would ensure better cattle monitoring in future.

The director said international studies showed that it was safe to consume meat and milk of the animals diagnosed with LSD, but the department had banned their sale to stem the spread of the skin disease.

He said Haripur had so far recorded 300 LSD cases with 97 per cent of them being cows and bulls and the rest buffaloes, while the mortality rate from it was six-eight per cent.

Dr Sohrab said the government had sent in vaccine, which would be administered to 12,000 animals.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2022