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Kathmandu Thursday April 19, 2001 Baishakh 06, 2058.
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Treat
them well
Amysterious disease has claimed over two
thousand sheep and goats, badly affecting the income of poor farmers in the northwestern
part of Humla district. This is not the first time disease has hit Humla hard. A few years
ago, another mystery disease claimed more than one thousand human lives, besides
economically crippling the rest of the local population. This apart, preventable diseases
that kill off mostly women and children and hunger and poverty are regular phenomenon in
the region. The government in Kathmandu has yet to do anything to improve the situation.
It has not even come around to making a thorough investigation into how such disease
breaks out in the district every summer.
The government allocates five percent of its
annual budget for the public health sector and hardly uses any of this money for
conducting research into perennial and seasonal diseases in the country. The entire health
budget is spent on curative measures only and no resources are left for the prevention of
any untoward epidemic. This budgetary neglect is the main reason why so many humans as
well as animals die of preventable diseases every year in Humla and in surrounding
districts. Some veterinary doctors from the National Control Program say the mystery
disease that has so far killed two thousand plus sheep and goats may be Pestes des Petits
Ruminants (PPR). This remains to be ascertained, however. The National Control Program is
speculating on the basis of what it claims is an epidemiological pattern it has found in
the Terai areas. It should pinpoint the disease only after investigating the matter
thoroughly. Humla does not lie at the same altitude as Mahottari, Morang and Banke
districts. The pattern may appear similar only to those who are not familiar with the
regions at high altitude. For a disease outbreak that has already crippled the local
economy, a doctor in the capital perhaps should not be making claims one way or another on
the basis of an epidemic pattern.
Humla, the remotest district of Nepal, is still
inaccessible by road. The local population is dependent mainly on rearing sheep and goats
as their primary source of income. The herders move with their livestock from low to high
altitude during summer and vice versa in winter. With the change of climate, the animals
often suffer from various diseases and there is hardly anything for detecting their
condition. The local people trek for days to buy daily essentials and a shortage of
food-grain hits the district frequently. This has not only led the local population to
migrate from the district but has also affected urban development as a result of massive
influx of people from remote parts of the country. The government must recognize the fact
that it has not taken the outbreak of new disease especially in remote parts of the
country seriously. It cannot get away with this at a time when thousands of animals are
dying of an unknown disease. It has to treat animals too.
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