Cooch Behar, Feb. 4: Animal diseases appear to be stalking Bengal: the Cooch Behar administration today announced that the anthrax bacteria had been found in samples from cows that died recently.

District magistrate Rajesh Kumar Sinha said a family at Bhojanerchhara village had lost five cows on Friday. “We sent the samples to the local animal resource department laboratory for tests. The results have turned out to be positive for anthrax.”

Another family in the same village has lost one cow to the disease.

At Jotpatki village in Mathabhanga, samples from seven cows that died between January 31 and February 1 have been sent for tests.

“We have decided to vaccinate cattle in the area from tomorrow,” Sinha said.

Sources in the animal resource development department said the dead cows had developed fever and died after bleeding from the mouth. The symptoms, they added, “were typical of cattle infected with the anthrax bacillus”.

Tapan Roy, the deputy director of the animal resource department in the district, said the local laboratory was equipped to detect anthrax.

“The dead animals have been buried more than eight feet underground,” he added.

The administration is all the more concerned as the outbreak comes within days of the completion of poultry culling in the two blocks of Dinhata I and Mathabhanga I.

The news of the outbreak has triggered a fresh wave of panic among people . Many have stopped drinking milk and eating meat.

“Who knows. They could be coming from an infected animal. We stopped having milk and meat just as we had stopped eating chickens and eggs,” said Rajib Alam.

Animal resource sources said cattle infected by the anthrax bacteria stop producing milk. “There is no cause for panic, but contaminated beef and pork should not be eaten.”

Anthrax cannot spread directly from one person to another, but anthrax spores can be transported by human clothing and shoes. If a person dies of anthrax, the body can be a very dangerous source of anthrax spores. The spores have been used as a biological warfare weapon.

Sources said there was no outbreak in Cooch Behar in five years and the practice of vaccinating cattle had stopped.

Last June, two men from Domkol in Murshidabad had died of anthrax at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Calcutta. Over 30 had been infected.