Patanjali working on finding solutions for Lumpy Skin Disease: Ramdev

Baba Ramdev on Friday said the Patanjali Group is working on finding solutions for Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) that has caused death of around 1 lakh cows. Ramdev suggested that the government should create awareness about the disease, which he alleged that might have “come from Pakistan”. He said the government should also investigate how the disease entered the country and spread across many states. “We are working on Lumpy Skin Disease virus,” Ramdev told reporters. He said around one lakh cows have died because of this disease. Ramdev said the disease also affected many cows in his shelter house at Haridwar but not even a single cow died. “We treated cows with ayurvedic medicines like Giloy. Cows having better immunity were not infected with this disease,” he said. The LSD has spread in more than a dozen states, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. The disease has affected 16.42 lakh cattle in 197 districts and has killed 75,000 cattle between July and September 11, 2022, according to data maintained by the Department of Animal Husbandry. LSD is a contagious viral disease that affects cattle and causes fever, nodules on the skin and can also lead to death. The disease gets spread by mosquitoes, flies, lice, and wasps by direct contact among the cattle, and through contaminated food and water. The Centre has said that goat pox vaccine, currently being administered on cattle to control the LSD, is 100 per cent effective. Two institutes of agri research body ICAR have developed a new vaccine ‘Lumpi-ProVacInd’ for the LSD, but it has not been commercially launched. India, the world’s largest milk producer, had a cattle population of 192.5 million in 2019, as per the 19th Livestock census.