NTCA issues high alert to India’s tiger states over coronavirus threat

Amidst COVID-19 pandemic gripping the nation in fear, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on Monday sounded high alert across India after the 4-year-old Malaysian tiger ‘Nadia’ tested positive for coronavirus in New York’s Bronx Zoo.

Alerting the Chief Wildlife Wardens of all the Tiger Range states in India, NTCA has directed to gear up the frontline staff as well as veterinary officials to detect the disease and prevent any spread in tigers in the wild.

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According to the directive, a copy of which is accessed by DH, NTCA’s Assistant Inspector General of Forests Dr Vaibhav C Mathur directed the forest officials to observe the tigers for symptoms consistent with COVID-19 such as respiratory signs of nasal discharge, coughing and laboured breathing through direct observation to the extent possible besides through camera trap images for visible symptoms.

Considering the communicable and zoonotic nature of the COVID-19, NTCA listed out actions to avert the disease in wild tigers including, “Personal handling tigers in human-tiger negative interactions and translocation operations be ascertained to be coronavirus negative. Diligence needs to be exercised while handling post mortem cases to record location, age, sex of the animal while collecting samples for coronavirus diagnosis in consultation with the state veterinary officials,” the circular stated.

Suggesting that the coronavirus affect the gastrointestinal system in felines, the NTCA said, “A correlation may be made for characterising the virus type in consultation with the veterinarians. Differential diagnosis with feline infectious rhino-tracheitis needs to be made as similar respiratory symptoms may be observed.”

The NTCA also directed the states to send the samples to ICAR approved laboratories as per the protocol besides reporting such cases immediately to NTCA.