Last Updated on October 13, 2024 by Nivedita
Quick Take
A social media post claims Pakistan started an outbreak of lumpy skin disease. We fact-checked and found the claim to be False. The available evidence only informs lumpy skin disease was detected in India before Pakistan.
The Claim
A Twitter post claims Pakistan started an outbreak of lumpy skin disease. The post is embedded below:
Fact Check
Did Pakistan spread an outbreak of lumpy skin disease ?
It does not seem so. The available evidence does not suggest Pakistan spread lumpy skin disease. THIP MEDIA has previously found a social media post that claims a man in Pakistan died of the disease and did a fact check to debunk lumpy skin disease spreads to humans through cow milk.
A document released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows lumpy skin disease was first observed in India in 2019. By the time the FAO document was published in 2020, the disease was not detected in Pakistan.
As we investigate the origins of the lumpy skin disease outbreak, it’s also important to consider how various health conditions, such as loose skin after rapid weight loss, can raise concerns about the impacts of health management practices.
In a statement to BBC, Dr KP Singh, Joint Director of the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), informed ‘The disease entered India from Bangladesh – not from Pakistan – due to natural animal movement and transport at the border. Cases in Bangladesh were reported earlier than cases in India. In Pakistan, cases were reported later, after being reported in India’. We even found a book on ScienceDirect that shows lumpy skin disease first originated in Zambia in 1929.