Govt not alarmed by anthrax scare

hyderabad:the state government on tuesday it is not unduly perturbed by anthrax scare reported from several parts of the world. this is not a problem disease for us as very few cases are reported in the state,health minister s aruna said on tuesday. we have adequate stocks of antibiotics to tackle any outbreak here and to supply the medicines to other countries.last year, the state registered three anthrax deaths in chittoor district, which were caused by infection from animals. to control any possible outbreak of the disease — spread from cattle, sheep, goats and wild animals like deer — the government has decided to distribute about five lakh doses of the vaccine, particularly in chittoor, nellore, cuddapah and kurnool districts, which are prone to it. the vaccine will be manufactured by the state-owned veterinary biological research institute vbri) here. simultaneously, a video film about the disease will be readied and shown in villages and towns. it will focus on how the disease spreads, the symptoms and the control measures. a core committee headed reddy labs chairman k anji reddy and comprising representatives from the health, animal husbandry and wildlife departments, has also been set up to prepare action plan within a week to tackle any anthrax outbreak.these decisions were taken at a high-level meeting between health minister aruna, animal husbandry minister n kistappa and senior officials of the two departments. we got a report that 22 families of jenukuruba hati hamlet mysore district were affected anthrax last week after consuming the meat of an infected deer. five of the infected persons died within a week. immediately after we received the news we began working on an action plan,aruna said. kistappa said a legislation is also being contemplated to make mandatory to either bury or burn the bodies of anthrax-affected animals in order to prevent its spread. anthrax is more of a problem areas such as kolar in karnataka and north arcot in tamil nadu where there is a concentration leather industry.