MAPPFA conducts disinfection drive at Ukhrul village
Source: Chronicle News Service / R Lester Makang

Ukhrul, August 09 2022: Manipur Progressive Pig Farmers' Association (MAPPFA) on Tuesday carried out a disinfection drive in Ukhrul district's Phalee village where over 100 domestic and farm pigs have died of an unknown disease.

The Association also distributed disinfectants including lime, bleaching powder, sodium hypochlorite to the pig rearers/farmers of the village to help them contain further spread of the disease.

According to village chairman Eleazar Raingam, the death toll of farm/domestic pigs in his village due to the unidentified infection has reached 160.The livestock infection reportedly broke out around mid June this year.

Despite many of the pigs receiving antibiotics from the veterinary department, the animals continued to die.

Villagers said that the vaccination has failed to protect their livestock against the illness.

In the village, more than 200 pigs have received vaccinations, but even those animals have died.

They said that the infected livestock died within three to seven days of showing signs such as physical weakness, shivering, and loss of appetite.

The local farmers commonly raise Hampshire, Yorkshire, and mixed breed swine, and they believed that the infection might have spread owing to the import of pigs from the outside, particularly Dimapur.

The local farmers and owners of pigs are in a state of panic as they prepare for a significant loss due to the rising rate of animal death.

Majority of them are subsistence farmers who depend on their livestock for income.

In order to protect the remaining animals, the villagers had appealed to the authorities for deputing veterinary doctors so as to conduct an early diagnosis of the disease and also urged for government assistance to the affected pig farmers to tide them over the situation.

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