How livestock farmers can curb anthrax

Cattle grazing at a farm in Uganda. Farmers have been asked to watch out for anthrax. PHOTO/RACHEL MABALA

There have been reports of Anthrax outbreak in the country affecting animals in western Uganda as well as the West Nile regions. The outbreak has caused panic among farmers and the communities in the affected regions.

What is anthrax?
Anthrax is a disease caused by a spore-forming bacterium called bacillus anthracis. The disease has existed for hundreds of years and still occurs naturally in both animals and humans all over the world in all continents except Antarctica.

Due to the recent outbreak in the country, scientists majoring in animal husbandry are doing their best to curb the situation.

Seeds of Gold caught up with Dr Halid Kirunda the Director Mbarara Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MBAZARDI) for an interview in a bid to explain possible practices farmers can adopt to avoid spread of the disease and below are the excerpts.

What causes outbreaks of anthrax?
Outbreaks are usually caused in response to unusual weather patterns, which can cause spores that were dormant in the soil to come to the surface where they are swallowed by ruminants.

The spores of the disease can stay in the environment for about 48 years. Usually, the bacteria are exposed when there is continuous rain and farmers are opening up land for planting.

Types of anthrax and how it is spread
Dr Halid explains that there are three types of anthrax which include gastrointestinal which affects the internal organs, cutaneous which is contracted via a skin wound and pulmonary caused when the bacteria are inhaled through breathing.

Among these, the pulmonary form is the most dangerous but is virtually impossible for animals to contract under natural conditions.

Anthrax neither spreads from animal to animal nor from person to person. The bacteria produce spores on contact with oxygen.

These spores are extremely resistant and survive for years in soil, or hair of infected animals. Then if ingested or inhaled by an animal, or on entering through cuts in the skin, they can germinate and cause disease.

An animal which dies of anthrax infection will not become stiff and its blood will not clot. This means the blood and any fluid are forced to ooze out and insects can spread it to animals or through direct contact.

Carnivores and humans can become infected by eating meat from an infected animal. But typically animals become infected by ingesting spores which are in the soil or in feed.

Symptoms
Ruminant animals are often found dead with no indication of illness and the body will not become stiff. In this acute form there may be high fever, muscle tremors and difficult breathing seen shortly before the animal collapses and dies.

In other ruminants there may be digestive upsets and colic, fever, depression and sometimes swelling. These symptoms may last for up to four days before death results.

In carnivores such as dogs, when the animal feeds on an infected source there may be an intestinal form of the disease with fever and cramps from which animals sometimes recover. The same symptoms are exhibited in human beings.

Dealing with the carcass
The carcass of animals that die of anthrax are very dangerous to people and other animals. It is suicidal to consume meat from an animal with anthrax. Blood from the carcass is also very infectious.

When anthrax microbes in the blood are exposed to air, they develop a thick protective wall. These thick-walled microbes are called spores, and can live for many years on the ground.

It is always prudent to notify a nearby vet in case you suspect an animal has the disease. However, it is safest to bury the body if you can in a deep pit (at least 6 feet deep) far away from water that people and animals drink.

Burn or bury everything, including the soil that has come into contact with blood from the dead animal. Place some thorns or a fence to keep animals off the site.

While burying or treating an infected animal or a person, people are expected to wear nose masks.

Control
In livestock, anthrax can be controlled largely by annual vaccination of all grazing animals in the endemic area. The non-encapsulated Sterne-strain vaccine is used almost universally for livestock immunisation. Vaccination should be done at least two to four weeks before the season when outbreaks may be expected.

“Livestock at risk should be immediately treated with a long-acting antibiotic to stop all potential incubating infections,” says Dr Halid. Contaminated feeds should be immediately disposed of. Domestic livestock respond well to penicillin if treated in the early stages of the disease.

Oxytetracycline given daily in divided doses is also effective. Other anti-bacterial drugs used include amoxicillin, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and sulfonamides.

The same drugs are administered in treating human beings infected with the disease.

Incidences
In mid-May 2018, blood samples were submitted to Mbarara ZARDI Livestock Health Research laboratory by a farmer from Omungali village in Kazo, Kiruhura District.

The information about the clinical history included death of four cattle within one week, which cattle had been treated for East Coast Fever (ECF) using Butalex and Oxytetracycline.

Each of the cattle died in the process of being injected with the drugs and there was no major clinical sign apart from death and temperature measuring 38oC - 39.8oC.

The un-clotted black-like coloured blood samples were submitted in seven pairs of tightly sealed vacuum containers and the result indicated the animals died of anthrax infection.