Court order: A brief breather for Australian sheep

Sindh High Court stays culling of ‘infected’ animals until next hearing.

KARACHI: The Australian sheep can breathe a sigh of relief for now as the Sindh High Court has stayed their culling until September 27.

Earlier on September 22, the court had directed a team of veterinary and microbiology experts to test whether the sheep were actually infected by anthrax or not. The saga of the allegedly infected animals has been dragging on for two weeks now, since the 21,000 sheep were imported from Australia.

On Monday, Prof. Rafique Khanani, who headed the diagnostics team, submitted two separate reports dated September 22 and 23, detailing his visit to the farm. Nineteen samples were obtained from 10 sheep from the herd, as examining the whole herd was not possible, submitted Khanani, who heads the pathology department at the Dow University of Health Sciences,

The culling of sheep was stopped as no sheep was found with symptoms of anthrax despite examination like obtaining temperature of the animals. After the lab tests, all samples turned up negative for anthrax.

Around 8,000 sheep have been put to death by the authorities and their carcasses burnt without obtaining samples to determine whether the animals suffered from any contagious disease or not. Any positive results occur only after the infected animal’s death, Khanani argued.

Syed Abid Ali Shah, the secretary of the Sindh Livestock and Fisheries Department, and Dr Nazir Ahmed Kalhoro, the Sindh Poultry Vaccination Centre director, contended that the labs in the country lacked the equipment to diagnose anthrax, a highly contagious disease.

The judges also expressed their displeasure on the failure of the livestock officers to place the record of why the Bahraini authorities had refused the shipment of sheep that were accepted by Pakistan.

“This is a very delicate matter. There are two important questions before us; as to under what circumstances and on what basis the consignment [of sheep] was refused by Bahrain and under what terms and conditions the petitioner procured the consignment. Both the questions have not yet been answered,” the bench observed.

The court directed the authorities to adopt all possible measures to control the spread of any infection or disease suffered by the animals, keeping in view the health and welfare of the sheep as well as the people handling the herd at the private farm.

After partly hearing the arguments of the government officers and independent veterinary, pathology and microbiology experts on the petition filed by the sheep importer, Tariq Mehmood Butt, the court adjourned the hearing until September 27.

On the request of petitioner’s lawyer, the judges also ordered the livestock secretary and director to count the remaining sheep in a scientific manner.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2012.