LSD has emerged as a dairy industry devastating disease in India in the last four years. First noticed in Orrisa and is now present all over India. Recurring outbreaks are now noticed in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and other states indicating that the disease is becoming endemic in India.

1. Lumpy skin disease (LSD) Globally and in India
DR. VARSHA JAYAKUMAR (Ph.D. Scholar)
Dr. Vinodhkumar OR, Senior Scientist
Dr. Bhoj R Singh, Principal Scientist and HD
Division of Epidemiology
ICAR- Indian Veterinary Reserch Institute, Izatnagar, India
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34626.15045

2. • Lumpy skin disease is an epizootic, transboundary, notifiable
disease causing severe economic loss in India (WOAH, 2022).
• Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is caused by lumpy skin disease
virus (LSDV) of genus capripoxvirus belonging to the family
Poxviridae. Closely related viruses are Goatpox and Sheeppox.
• Known as "Pseudo-urticaria," "Neethling virus disease,"
"exanthema nodularis bovis," and "knopvelsiekte (Al-Salihi &
Hassan, 2015)
• Sheep pox and goat pox also share antigenic similarity with the
LSD virus (Goff et al., 2011).
• Non-zoonotic disease and is vector-borne, primarily affecting
ruminants like cattle and water buffaloes (Tuppurainen et al.,
2011)
• The disease is spreading across more than 15 states in India
recently causing huge economic loss (Kumar et al., 2021).
• The LSDV mainly affects cattle and water buffaloes and the
virus is highly host specific
(https://ahvs.karnataka.gov.in/storage/pdf-files/FAQs.pdf).

3. • Transmission: Direct and Indirect means of Contact including bites of vectors (mechanical) and,
transplacental, milk, iatrogenic and contaminated fomites including water and feed.
• Sexually transmitted disease (STD): Disease also spread through AI if contaminated semen from
LSD infected bull is used for 42 days of infection.
• Morbidity: 10- 20 % Mortality : < 5% (OIE,2018)
• Outbreaks occur more frequently in warm and humid climate, especially during seasonal rains :
Proliferation of vector populations.
Review Research gap Objectives Tech. program Expected outcome
Introduction
Gupta et al., 2020

4. Clinical LSD
• Diagnosis: Clinical signs and Laboratory confirmation through detection of virus in swabs, skin-
biopsies, serum, scab and blood samples of affected animals. Semen of bulls also contains LSDV.
• IP: The incubation period in experimental condition is 4-12 days. In field conditions it may vary
from 1-5 weeks.
• Lesions: Extensive skin nodules covering the entire body of affected animals. LSD is more severe
in cattle compared to buffaloes in terms of morbidity and mortality.
• Signs:
• High fever
• Drastic reduction in milk yield in lactating cows
• Enlarged (prescapular or pre-femoral) superficial lymph nodes (unilateral or bilateral)
• Oedema of limbs and other dependent body parts, such as the dewlap, brisket, scrotum and vulva.
• The affected animal cannot lie down up to 24-48 hours due to swelling of joints and oedema.
• Variable size skin/cutaneous nodules of 1–5 cm in diameter on almost all parts of the body within 48 hours of
onset of fever.
• As disease progresses, the nodules may become necrotic and eventually fibrotic which may persist for several
months. Usually, large nodules heal by necrotic process and small nodules may resolve spontaneously without
any consequences.
• Erosions / ulcers may develop on the mucous membranes of the mouth, nostrils, teats and vulval lips.
• The pregnant cows may abort and permanent or temporary infertility in breeding bulls.
• Recovery from severe infection may be slow due to emaciation, secondary pneumonia, mastitis, and necrotic
skin plugs, which are subject to fly strike.

5. LSD Prevention and Control
The disease can be prevented and controlled by:
• Prophylactic vaccination: Currently Goat pox vaccine is used in India (For more
details read: https://azad-azadindia.blogspot.com/2022/09/which-of-goat-pox-vaccines-gpv-also.html &
https://azad-azadindia.blogspot.com/2022/10/blog-post.html).
• Segregation /isolation of affected animals from healthy animals.
• Imposing animal movement restrictions
• Avoid communal grazing and cattle markets/gatherings
• Use of insect nets wherever possible
• Regular use of insect repellents or pesticides to control vectors.
• Practice farm level biosecurity measures.
• Disinfestation or decontamination of animals sheds, surroundings area etc.,
• Proper disposal of carcass.

6. GLOBAL OCCURRENCE OF LSD
• 1928-29: First documented LSD outbreak in
Zambia (LSD becomes endemic across Africa)
• 2006: Middle East
• 2012 and 2013: Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon
• 2015: LSD expands to Southern Europe and
Central Asia, including Russia and Kazakhstan.
• July 2019: LSD outbreak officially reported in
Bangladesh (First South Asian entry of the
disease).
• August 2019: China and India
OIE-WAHIS, 2021
Review Research gap Objectives Tech. program Expected outcome
Introduction

7. Regions with high risk of LSD occurrence
Suitability map for the LSD occurrence. The warmer colors depict areas
of high suitability while cooler colors depict areas of low suitability.
An et al. (2023)

8. LSD outbreaks in India
Source: The Indian Express
Until 23 September Maharashtra; Until 1 October Uttar
Pradesh; Until 29 September Madhya Pradesh.
Till now 24 Indian states have encountered LSD cases.

9. GEO SPATIAL EPIDEMIOLGICAL STUDIES on LSD
Study Observations Reference
Spatio-temporal dynamics of LSD
outbreaks in Ethiopia between 2000 and
2015
Absence of a specific national strategy for LSD control or eradication and the
increasing use of irrigation in crop cultivation, leading to favourable environmental
conditions for vector-borne diseases
Molla et al.,
2017
The First Lumpy Skin Disease Outbreak
in Thailand (2021): Epidemiological
Features and Spatio-Temporal Analysis
Comprehensive insights into the epidemiological characteristics of LSD in
Thailand using Space-Time Permutation (STP) and Poisson Space-Time (Poisson
ST) by identifying clusters
Arjkumpa et
al., 2021
Spatio-temporal patterns of lumpy skin
disease outbreaks in dairy farms in
northeastern Thailand
Study indicated that farmers who have farms located within a one kilometre radius
of an LSD outbreak farm should be encouraged to enhance their insect vector
control measures in order to effectively contain the spread of the disease.
Punyapornwi
thaya et al.,
2022
Spatial and temporal epidemiology
of lumpy skin disease in the Middle East,
2012–2015
Presence-only maximum entropy ecological niche modeling and the time-
dependent method to estimate the effective reproductive number (R-TD).
significant environmental factors contributed to the ecological niche of LSDV,
including annual precipitation, land cover, mean diurnal range, type of livestock
production system, and global livestock densities.
Alkhamis et
al., 2016
Spatial and temporal distribution of
lumpy skin disease outbreaks in Uganda
(2002–2016)
Identified possible spatial hotspots for LSD outbreaks and observed that sporadic
LSD outbreaks occur both within and outside of areas where the disease is
endemic.
Ochwo et al.
(2018)

10. Directional trend analysis on LSD
Distribution of lumpy skin disease
outbreak sites in Southeast Asia
between 1 October 2020 and 1
October 2021. Sites are shaded green
to red by epidemic day (1–361). Day
1 = 5 October 2020; day 361 = 1
October 2021. Directional ellipses (1
SD) are overlayed; unweighted (blue)
and weighted by cases (orange) and
epidemic day (purple). The mean
centres indicated by stars; unweighted
(blue) and weighted by cases (orange)
and epidemic day (purple).
Ward (2020) mapped the Spread of Lumpy Skin Disease Virus
across Southeast Asia.

11. Prediction Models used for LSD
Study Observations Reference
Modeling the lumpy skin disease risk
probability in central Zagros Mountains of Iran
The results showed that mainly the central, northern, northeast and southern
parts of Charmahal and Bakhtiari were the most very high risk areas for
LSD.
Ardestani et
al. (2020)
Forecasting of daily new lumpy skin disease
cases in Thailand at different stages of the
epidemic using fuzzy logic time series, NNAR,
and ARIMA methods
Fuzzy logic time series (FTS), neural network auto-regressive (NNAR) and
autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) methods. performance
of these models in predicting the daily new cases of LSD and to provide
insights into the progression of the epidemic at different time points
(Punyapornw
ithaya et al.,
2023)
Modelling epidemic growth models for lumpy
skin disease cases in Thailand using nationwide
outbreak data, 2021–2022
Mathematical models to accurately capture the patterns of daily new
LSD cases and daily cumulative LSD cases in Thailand
Moonchai et
al. (2023)
Mathematical study of lumpy skin disease with
optimal control analysis through vaccination
Understand how vaccination could impact the spread and progression of the
disease.
Butt et al.
(2023)
Assessing machine learning techniques in
forecasting lumpy skin disease occurrence
based on meteorological and geospatial features
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) along with geospatial and meteorological
parameters can enable highly precise forecasting of LSDV infection
occurrences.
Safavi et al.
(2021)

12. Study Observations Reference
Mathematical modelling and
evaluation of the different routes
of transmission of lumpy skin
disease virus
The model considered three modes of transmission: direct, indirect and
Miking methods. Direct contact between cattle within the affected herd or
contact through the milking procedure played a minimal role in the spread of
the LSD virus.
Cohen et al.
(2012)
Applying Different Resampling
Strategies In Random
Forest Algorithm To Predict
Lumpy Skin Disease
The Random Forest classifier demonstrated excellent performance when
applied to both under-sampled and over-sampled data
Suparyati et
al., 2021
Global Risk Assessment of the
Occurrence of Bovine Lumpy
Skin Disease: Based on an
Ecological Niche Model
Identified density of cattle and buffalo, as well as a variable known as bio2,
which represents the mean diurnal range as the key factors contributing to
the disease transmission.
An et al.
(2023)

13. Ecological Niche Model ( MaxEnt)
Directional distribution analysis of LSD cases in the world
from 2006 to September 2022. The points and ellipses
represent the LSD cases and standard deviation ellipses
for the different phases. The blue color depicts 2006–
2009, the red color depicts 2010–2013, the yellow color
depicts 2014–2017, and the green color depicts 2018–
September 2022.
An et al. (2023) studied the Global Risk Assessment of the Occurrence of Bovine
Lumpy Skin Disease: Based on an Ecological Niche Model.

14. ECONOMIC IMPACT
• The WOAH classifies LSD as a notifiable disease due to its huge economic impact
(Abutarbush, 2017).
• The economic implications of LSD: High morbidity rates, resulting in severe
emaciation, hide damage, infertility, mastitis, reduced milk production, and
abortions.
• The direct economic loss includes the value of the dead cattle, and associated
losses such as decrease in the production of milk, including a decrease of yield in
infected cattle (Shagun , 2022)
Review Research gap Objectives Tech. program Expected outcome
Introduction

15. Economic impact of LSD in Indian states
• Lumpy Skin Disease Caused Over 1.5 Lakh Cattle Deaths In 2022
(https://m.timesofindia.com/city/dehradun/10000-active-cases-of-lumpy-skin-disease-across-
country/articleshow/100315340.cms#:~:text=%22At%20present%2C%20Rajasthan%2C%20Punjab,LSD%20cases%20in%20other%20st
ates.)
• In August 2022 Gujarat reported a dip in milk collection amounting to
approximately 1,00,000 liters per day in certain locations (The New Indian
Express. 6 August 2022).
• Collection of milk in Rajasthan fell by over 20% in August 2022; by
September collection had decreased by 500,000-600,000 litres per day. In
some places collection has fallen to zero in Rajasthan. This has not
impacted the price of milk (Sachin, 2022; Livemint, 11 September 2022).
• LSD outbreaks again encountered in May 2023 in Rajasthan and
Uttarakhand (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/10000-active-cases-of-lumpy-skin-
disease-across-country/articleshow/100315340.cms?from=mdr)

16. DAHD, 2022
Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Kerala, and Assam
Mizoram
Odisha
Gujarat
Tripura
Rajasthan
Timeline of LSD epizootics in India
Sikkim
August 2019: LSD appears in India (Odisha) and western China.
2020-2021: LSD spreads to adjacent districts and states in India,
including Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, and Assam.
2022: LSD outbreaks reported in Kutch region of Gujarat (May
2nd), followed by Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal
Pradesh.
September 2022: Over 2 million animals affected across 251
districts in 15 states in India, according to GoI, DADF data.

17. And Now in Kerala
• At present, the disease has been reported in 8,000 cows in the Kerala
state (Jan 2023 ). The authorities are planning to create immunity by
doing ring vaccination for cows within a radius of 5 km from the
confirmed area. The disease has been reported in
Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Malappuram and Kasaragod
districts. Last year, 4,928 cattle in the state were affected with lumpy
skin disease. https://keralakaumudi.com/en/news/news.php?id=981256&u=lumpy-skin-disease-
spreading-among-cows-widespread-vaccination-from-january-15

18. Economic impact of LSD
▫ The overall morbidity in India was 7.1 percent, with a lower
morbidity observed in backyard small holdings (Sudhakar et al.,
2020).
▫ Overall economic losses at farm level range from US$9.6 to
US$6,340 depending on species affected and production system in
subsistence farmers of Northeast Nigeria ( Limon et al., 2020).
▫ The mean farm-level losses from reduction in milk yield and
mortality were estimated at 97 USD and 31USD for farms in
Kenya keeping indigenous breeds ( Kiplagat et al., 2020).
▫ A significant indirect losses due to treatments and vaccinations
were noticed in LSD affected farms of Kenya ( Kiplagat et al.,
2020)

19. Determinants of disease
• Susceptible population: Cattle and buffalo population density, husbandry practices
• Vectors and vector density: Biting flies, mosquitoes and ticks
• Season plays an essential role in the dynamics of LSD since its outbreak has been
associated with high temperature and high humidity (Kitching and Mellor 1986, Yeruham et
al. 1995). Similar seasonal patterns were also observed in the recent outbreak in India, where
the highest number of cases (and deaths) were between July and September 2022, the
monsoon season in Western India. Unfortunately, we know little about these between
seasonal variations in vector Figure 3: Hard tick (left) and Sarcophagus fly (right)
abundance, their life cycle, and the ecology of their life stages. Knowing this is important
because the risk of infection by vectors is often life-stage dependent. Primary biological data
such as these can help reduce and manage encounters between domestic livestock and LSD
vectors, thus managing this disease. Hence, we will analyze the temporal (seasonal) and
spatial variation in species richness and population structure and dynamics of LSD vectors,
particularly hard ticks and flies (flesh and house flies) in the Kutch area.
• Large water bodies and human activity can also alter the local micro-climate, hence
influencing vector ecology. For instance, natural water bodies in semi-arid landscapes such
as Kutch are important in determining livestock and wildlife distribution and behavior. Since
the distance from these water bodies also forms a humidity gradient, it should also influence
the ecology of vectors. Spatial variation will also be tested along an urbanization gradient
(distance from a village) since livestock is kept at a higher density in human settlements.