Status of Livestock and Poultry Diseases in A & N Islands: Strategies to Make Island Disease Free

Abstract

The A & N Islands witnessed a tragic incidence of major earthquake followed by tsunami in the year 2004 due to which the loss of livestock was recorded as poultry (19.35%), cattle (10.3%), goat (37.75%) and pig (83.55%). The pretsunami disease trend indicated that the livestock and poultry of these Islands are generally free from most of the dreaded diseases of livestock which are prevalent in mainland, India. However, the incidence and prevalence of parasitic diseases are very high due to the high humidity and rainfall which favor the prevalence of parasitic diseases. The post-tsunami disease trends of the livestock and poultry indicated the outbreak of some of the diseases which were never reported from the Islands earlier. The diseases were introduced probably due to the entry of livestock, meat, meat products, egg, and poultry from mainland. The present paper describes the trend of livestock and poultry diseases in Andaman & Nicobar Islands during the pre-tsunami and post-tsunami period. A systematic survey based on the active and passive surveillance on livestock and poultry diseases in all the inhabited Islands was conducted to prepare Island wise prevalence of disease map. The study showed that parasitic diseases are most prevalent in livestock along with some of the zoonotic diseases like leptospirosis and brucellosis. The cases of infertility, repeat breeding, anestrous have also been reported mainly from the cross bred cows. Moreover, study on the mineral profile of soil, water, fodder and in blood profile suggested the deficiency of micro and macro mineral such as Ca: P imbalance in blood, deficiency of Cu, Zn, Co and others.