Twelve more Anthrax affected people had been detected in Sirajganj and Pabna districts yesterday raising the number of affected to138.
Of the affected, ten were in Sirajganj district while the rest two in Pabna district, Civil Surgeon office sources said.
The affected are: Sabina Khatun (25) of Barakandi village, Ashamoni (13) and Salma Khatun (10) of Adachaki village, Hassan Ali (20), Hossain Ali (22), Jahedul Islam (20), Masud Rana (11), Azizal Huq (22), Maznu Mian (45) and Sharifa Khatun (24) of Goynakandi village in Belkuchi upazila of Sirajganj district. On the other hand, Shariful Islam (40) of Chhoto Patharia village and Swapna (35) of Boro Patharia village were from Sathia upazila of Pabna district.
A four-member team from Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh led by Prof. Dr. Md. Abu Hadi Nur Ali Khan reached the affected areas and collected different samples from the affected people and slaughtered animals for lab test. Besides, another team from Institute of Epidemiological Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) consisted of ten members led by its director Dr. Mahmudur Rahman went to the same areas on a similar mission.
However, fear over Anthrax infection is rising among the residents in the areas, as there is no improvement of the disease so far after deploying several medical teams in the areas.
Meanwhile, administration of both the districts have started campaigning to make the people aware of Anthrax infection and formed several monitoring teams to supervise the markets so that none get any chance to slaughter sick animals. They also directed the monitoring teams to ensure the slaughtering of animals in a hygienic and healthy environment.
While visiting different markets in the areas this correspondent observed that, many slaughtering shops were vacant and many were closed in fear of monitoring teams’ visit. Besides, the number of slaughtering started reducing as the buyers meanwhile started to avoid beef following the appearance of Anthrax bacteria.
Sirajganj District Livestock Office sources said a total of 19 animals including cows and goats died in the last two weeks due to lack of vaccination. The owners of the animals denied pushing vaccines to their animals without permission of the doctors of Milk Vita as they were the members of some associations, backed by the greater milk producing organisation.
Meanwhile, the officials have claimed that about 40,000 cattle out of 1,119,276 have been brought under vaccination in the last two weeks. They added that about 50,000 new and live vaccines were now in their stock for supplying.
While talking to the leaders of different supervision teams they told The New Nation that they were being surprised by finding heavy presence of the bacteria in the cattle sector. However, they expressed hope to control the situation as soon as possible as the disease did not break out from human beings.
