Veterinary doctors treating the tuberculosis (TB) affected sloth bears in Bannerghatta Zoo say there is no cure for the disease. The disease cannot even be detected early because there are no TB detection kits for sloth bears available in India. Vets screen the bears using TB kits used for elephants.
The tally of bears diagnosed with TB symptoms so far is 17. They have been separated from the other sloth bears in the rehabilitation centre. The big worry for the vets now is that the infected sloth bears have stopped eating the food that is mixed with TB medicine. Dr Arun A. Sha, wildlife veterinary officer with Wildlife SOS, said that there are no injecting drugs to treat TB in sloth bears.
“There are four types of tablets that we feed the bears inside egg, fruits or mixed with honey. But the bears are refusing to eat the food with the medicine and are becoming weaker. Hence we are giving them alternative therapy, using antibiotics and supportive therapy,” says Dr Sha. The sloth bear rehabilitation and safari is run by Wildlife SOS under the supervision of Bannerghatta Biological Park. The disease struck in January and the number of bears in the park is down to 100. Most of the bears here have been rescued from the Khalandhar tribe that use the animals to earn a living, training them to dance or beg on the streets.
Eight of the 17 affected bears were brought from West Bengal after the Maoists threatened to torch Purulia Zoo in 2010. These bears were infected with TB and three of them have died while the rest have slight symptoms of TB which can be controlled if not cured completely, Dr Sha said.
The vets are now keeping their fingers crossed that the other 90 bears in the safari park are not affected by the TB. "The sloth bears that have symptoms of TB (like low intake of food and reduction in body weight) have been shifted to a separate enclosure away from the safari area where a majority of the sloth bears roam free," said Dr R. Raju, executive director of Bannerghatta Park. All steps are being taken to stop the spread of the disease, he says. "We are in touch with the best TB institutes in India and abroad. Last week a team from the Rajiv Gandhi
Institute of Biotechnology (Mico-bacterium Research Group) visited the bear safari and advised the doctors on detection and treatment for the same," Dr Raju added.