A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day.
The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets.
The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants.
Photo: AFP
However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they tasted of the bitter medicine, and crankily charging their keepers.
“Giving treatment for TB to elephants is always challenging. Each day we use different methods,” said Buddhika Bandara, a veterinary surgeon from Sri Lanka who flew in to oversee the treatment.
“The animals showed some stress in the beginning, but gradually they adapted to the procedure,” said Bandara, who has helped more than a dozen elephants recover from the illness in Sri Lanka.
Mahout Ali Baloch wakes early daily to stew rice and lentils, mixed with plenty of sugar cane molasses, and rolls the concoction into dozens of balls pierced with the tablets.
“I know the pills are bitter,” the 22-year-old said, watching the elephants splashing under a hose to keep cool.
Four African elephants — captured young in the wild in Tanzania — arrived in Karachi in 2009. Noor Jehan died in 2023 at the age of 17, and another, Sonia, followed at the end of last year. An autopsy showed she had contracted tuberculosis, which is endemic in Pakistan.
Tests carried out on Madhubala and Malika also came back positive, and the city council — which owns the safari park — assembled a team to care for the pachyderms.
Bandara said it is not uncommon for elephants to contract the contagious illness from humans, but that Sonia — and now Madhubala and Malika — had shown no symptoms.
“It was surprising for me that elephants have TB,” said Naseem Salahuddin, head of the Infectious Disease Department at the Indus Hospital and Health Network, who was enrolled to monitor staff.
“This is an interesting case for me and my students — everyone wants to know about the procedure and its progress,” she said.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS