By Muhammad Luqman
After a tiger in a New York’s Bronx zoo was found contracted COVID-19, the wildlife department authorities of Pakistan’s Punjab province have urged the management of all the zoological gardens to conduct diagnostic tests of all the animals and staff within three days.
” Veterinary doctors should submit their report after proper check up of the animals in the Zoos and wildlife parks,” Punjab Minister for Wildlife and Fisheries, Malik Asad Ali Khokhar said in a directive.
All the zoo and wildlife parks management have been asked to take samples, especially of those staff members who were in close contact with animals such as Zoo keepers and make effective precautionary measures to save them from this pandemic.
In the neighbouring India, its Central Zoo Authority has also asked Zoological gardens to remain on high alert and keep a close watch on wild animals for symptoms consistent with COVID=19 , Times of India reported.
According to zoonosis experts, the zoonotic Covid-19 disease seems to have found a path to wild animals too after the US zoo incident.
Scientists have closely linked the source of SARS-CoV-2 to scaly pangolins and transmission of the infection has largely been human-to-human. However, the Bronx Zoo case is the first case that has surfaced publicly of transmission from a human to a wild animal.
