A 12-year-old male lion at Arignar Anna Zoological Park, Vandalur succumbed to COVID-19 at 10.15 am on June 16, Wednesday. In a statement, the joint director of Vandalur zoo said, “The lion, Padmanaban, was under treatment for the novel coronavirus after the test results from the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases came back positive on June 3.”
The death of the lion Padmanaban comes soon after the zoo lost a nine-year-old lioness named Neela to COVID-19 on June 3. At that time, the zoo sent the samples of 11 lions for COVID-19 testing, out of which, nine lions including Neela tested positive for the virus. However, the zoo, to rule out false positives and to find out whether Neela died due to comorbidities, sent the samples to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad on June 4. The results said that Neela also had Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) and one other lion named Raghav, who tested negative for COVID-19, tested positive for mild CDV as well.
However, the test results for the other lions were positive only for coronavirus.
It was also found that the animals at Vandalur zoo were not vaccinated against CDV. However, Supriya Sahu, Secretary, Environment and Forests, Tamil Nadu, has instructed the officials to follow the vaccination protocols and vaccinate the animals as soon as possible. The Vandalur zoo has arranged for CCTV cameras to monitor the animals 24x7 and the cages are to be cleaned by staff before 11 am every day.
Meanwhile, the samples of elephants taken for novel coronavirus testing in Kozhikamuthi elephant camp and Annamalai elephant camp came back negative. In a communication, the joint director of Annamalai elephant camp in Pollachi said, as per the instructions of the Tamil Nadu Forest Minister the samples of elephants from the Annamalai camp in Pollachi and Kozhikamuthi camps were sent for testing to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute at Uttar Pradesh. The results were recently received by the Forest Veterinary doctor, Coimbatore. He said that according to the results 28 elephants in Kozhikamuthi tested negative for the novel coronavirus.