Another lion has died of coronavirus in Tamil Nadu, India. The lion died on Wednesday at Tamil Nadu's Arignar Anna zoo. The 12-year-old animal had been infected with Covid on 3 June.

Indian media reports said that earlier in the month a nine-year-old lioness named Nila, also from the same zoo, died after contracting coronavirus. At that time, seven of the zoo's 14 lions tested positive. This makes two lion deaths in two weeks.

The zoo authorities said three more lions were responding only slowly to treatment and were being closely watched. Steps are being taken according to instructions from experts at the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, and care is being taken to stop the infection spreading to other animals in the zoo.

Staff have been vaccinated and thermal screening has been set up at the entrance. Staff enter wearing PPE kits, and cages and other areas are sanitised regularly. With visitors barred, the zoo currently has almost no income. As this situation has gone on for a long time, meeting the costs of caring for the animals, paying staff and other expenses is becoming increasingly difficult, the authorities said.

Reports of lions catching coronavirus in India are not new. Earlier, eight lions at the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad were infected at the same time, though none of them died.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.