CHAKWAL: Rizwan Abid, a dairy farmer, looked distressed as he vainly tried to make his prized bull stand up. The bull, sitting under the scorching sun, was unable to get up, as it was suffering from foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious viral illness wreaking havoc across Punjab for the last two months.
The disease has emerged in the province just ahead of Eidul Azha, leaving buyers and sellers in a lurch. Since cattle markets across the province were not shut down to contain the disease, it has spread to many districts.
“I have lost a cow and four calves due to this disease, and now my bull is fighting for his life,” Mr Abid told Dawn. His cattle pen is located on the outskirts of Chakwal, where he is rearing 13 animals, including cows and buffaloes. According to him, no government veterinarian ever visited his place for the vaccination.
Ironically, the Chakwal livestock department is not even aware of the scale of the havoc that the FMD has been wreaking in Chakwal and Talagang. “Only one case has been reported so far from Tamman village of Talagang, where fifteen animals were affected by the disease,” Additional Director Dr Sohail Manzoor told Dawn. Dawn’s investigation, however, revealed that almost every village in the two districts has been affected by the disease.
For example, in Murid village, two cows and four calves owned by dairy farmer Jaffar Abbas died. “The loss of my animals has broken my back as my two cows were valued at Rs 1 million,” Jaffar Abbas told Dawn.
His neighbour Ahmed Khan was administering medicine to a cow when this correspondent reached his cattle pen. “My cow is neither eating her fodder nor drinking water due to illness,” Ahmed Khan told Dawn, opening up the mouth of his cow to show her blistered tongue.
The cattle pen of Qazi Farooq is only a kilometre from the livestock department’s office and Mr Farooq has lost seven animals to the disease. In the same locality, eight out of 24 animals owned by Ashir Ali are sick for the same reason.
In Dhakku village, the herd of goats and sheep owned by Aftab Ahmed has been badly affected by the disease, while his five cows are still ill. In Dhudial, dairy farmer Syed Asad Abbas lost a heifer and Mohammad Arif in Murid village lost three calves to FMD. Many other farmers belonging to different villages also confirmed the prevalence of the disease in their cattle.
Last week, Mehran Aziz from Dhakku took his sacrificial bull to the market and demanded Rs 350,000, but the animal could not fetch the desired price and he had to bring it back. Days after, the bull contracted FMD.
Meanwhile, the cows who survived the disease are still reeling from aftershocks.
“A cow, which was giving twenty litres of milk, is now only producing three to four litres; it is also feared that pregnant cows would abort, while the lactating ones might not come into estrous cycle”, a veterinarian told Dawn.
Former livestock deputy director Dr Muhammad Riaz, who is the most sought-after veterinarian in Chakwal, told Dawn that he had attended to more than 150 cases of FMD during the last one and a half months.
“The disease is still present in many villages,” he said. “…the mortality rate in large animals used to be hardly one per cent in the past, but this year it killed even large animals in significant numbers,” he revealed.
He said the vaccination must be carried out by a separate task force that should be completed within a short span of time. “But, unfortunately, the campaign is carried out by the same veterinarians who treat the infected animals. Moreover, disposable syringes and proper equipment are not used, and this practice causes the spread of the disease instead of controlling it,” said Dr Riaz.
When contacted, Dr Sohail Manzoor, the LDD additional director, said that he would look into the issue. “Strict action would be taken against those employees who did not report the FMD cases,” he said, adding that vaccination had been carried out in different hotspots of Chakwal and Talagang where FMD had been witnessed in the past.
Pakistan is among the few countries that still cannot control FMD, despite lofty claims by the federal and provincial governments. According to a report prepared by the Punjab Livestock and Dairy Development Department (LDD), Pakistan faces an annual loss of $6-8 billion in the livestock sector due to FMD. This fatal disease also remains a major obstacle in the export of Pakistani meat to the major markets of the world.
Meanwhile, at the government level, the efforts are insufficient to counter this disease.
The Foot and Mouth Disease Research Centre in Lahore produces 10 million doses of FMD vaccine annually due to limited budget and obsolete technology, while the annual demand exceeds 80 million doses in the province, the LDD report said.
The livestock department has been using two vaccination strategies for FMD control in Punjab since 2017.
In south Punjab, massive vaccination has been underway since 2017 to make the region a disease-free zone, while ring vaccination is carried out in case of an outbreak in other parts of the province.
Ironically, south Punjab has not become FMD-free, as the current outbreak was first reported from different southern districts.
Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025
