Chennai, Jul 14 (IANS): The animal husbandry departments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala have commenced vaccinating the livestock near the Anaikati border after Anthrax claimed the life of a wild elephant in the Anaikati forest area.

The Tamil Nadu veterinary department and the animal husbandry department are vaccinating livestock, including cow, goat, buffalo and ox, in the areas within 8 km radius of the Anaikati forest area. The veterinary department is cautious as the elephant which died due to Anthrax would have used water from the nearby water bodies.

Three teams of livestock inspectors were formed under the veterinarians of Anaikati, Thudiyalur and Madathuri to visit the farms and houses in Sembukkarai and Mangarai to vaccinate domestic animals.

According to the animal husbandry department officials, around 500 doses of vaccine have been earmarked for the livestock and the department is taking extra precautions even though there has been no case of Anthrax among domestic animals since 2016, when a cow had died of the disease.

The department also said that the death of the elephant due to Anthrax is the first case in the forest areas under the Coimbatore forest division in the past four-and-a-half years.

Frontline workers of the forest department and the veterinary and animal husbandry department officials have been pressed into service to sanitise the forest area in a radius of a few kilometres from where the carcass of the elephant that died due to Anthrax was found.

The Coimbatore forest division in Tamil Nadu and the Palakkad forest division in Kerala are conducting joint patrolling on whether any other wild animal has died in the forest bordering the Anakati area due to Anthrax.

The veterinary and animal husbandry departments of Kerala are also in the process of vaccinating domestic animals in farms and homes near the border areas.