'India acts to shield its tigers against COVID-19 malady'

Amid reports of a US zoo tiger found coronavirus positive, India's apex tiger conservation body has swung into action and has asked all tiger range states to keep an eye over big cats and immediately report to authorities, if anyone of them are found having COVID-19 symptoms.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority alerted chief wildlife wardens of all tiger range states shortly after the Union Ministry of Environment advised states to curb human visits to and movements in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries as precautionary measures against the transmission of infection from humans to animals.

It asked them to gear up frontline staff as well as veterinary officials to prevent the spread of the disease among tigers owing to the zoonotic nature of COVID-19. "I am directed to inform that owing to the communicable and zoonotic nature of the said disease, following actions need to be taken to avert the disease in wild tigers in India.

"Tigers may be observed for symptoms consistent with COVID-19 such as respiratory signs of nasal discharge, coughing and laboured breathing through direct observation to the extent possible, besides through camera trap images for visible symptoms," said Vaibhav C Mathur, NTCA's Assistant Inspector General of Forests.

He also said it should be ensured that "personnel handling tigers in human-tiger negative interactions and translocation operations be ascertained to be coronavirus negative". They should also take due precaution as advised by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from time to time, he added. 

"For COVID 19 diagnosis as well as differential diagnoses and characterization as highlighted above, samples may be sent to ICAR-approved laboratories as per the enclosure. "It is, hence, requested to gear up the front line staff as well as veterinary officials engaged in monitoring tiger mortality in areas under your jurisdiction to detect the disease and prevent its spread in tigers in the wild. Being a notifiable disease, any positive case needs to be reported immediately to the NTCA for onward transmission to the authorities concerned," the NTCA said.

Diligence needs to be exercised while handling postmortem cases to record location, age and sex of the animal while collecting samples for coronavirus diagnosis in consultation with the state veterinary officials while safeguarding oneself through appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), it said.

As coronavirus is known to affect gastrointestinal system in felines, requisite correlation may be made for characterizing the virus type in consultation with the State Veterinary Department. "Differential diagnosis with feline infectious rhino-tracheitis needs to be made as similar respiratory symptoms may be observed," it said.

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