Livestock officials in Trongsa are suspecting an outbreak of the Gid disease in the highlands of Trongsa after they found two yaks of Thangyul village under Nubi Gewog in Trongsa showing symptoms of the disease. The District Livestock Sector will send the samples tomorrow to the Regional Livestock Development Center in Zhemgang for confirmation.
A team from the Livestock sector visited the grazing areas for yaks of Thangyul this month as a part of their sensitisation programme. The journey to the grazing areas begins from Thangyul village in the extreme northwest of Trongsa. It roughly takes a day’s walk from the village.
“The yaks have shown the exact symptoms of Gid such as the imbalance of the body, nodding and shaking of heads in twisted ways, and signs of listlessness,” said Dawa Yangka, the District Veterinary Officer in Trongsa.
Gid, locally known as Gu-Yum is a disease of the central nervous system in yaks and sheep caused by Coenurus cerebralis. It is the presence of a cyst in the brain of yaks causing death when the treatments are delayed. Yak dogs among other canine species are considered as the main host for adult Gid tapeworm in the country. Highlanders use dogs to control and protect yaks from wild predators. And yaks contract the disease after grazing the grass or in the environment infested by dog faeces, which contains eggs of tapeworm. Young yaks below the age of three are identified as more susceptible to the disease.
For now, the officials dewormed all yaks, dogs and sheep in the grazing areas. The locals reported six death cases of the yak so far but due to other causes such as tiger and fox attacks.
“If the gid disease is confirmed this time, we have to again thoroughly check all the 200 hundred yaks with an equal number of sheep there. And accordingly, we need to provide treatments,” he added.
Every year, highlanders across the country witness nearly a thousand of their yaks succumb to the gid disease.
Passang, Trongsa
