Following a state government notification asking the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to take measures to prevent infection from the Japanese encephalitis virus, the BMC has passed an order to kill 1,000 pigs a week.

Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne disease of human beings and animals. Mosquitoes become infected by feeding on domestic pigs and wild birds infected with the Japanese encephalitis virus. Infected mosquitoes then transmit the Japanese encephalitis virus to humans and animals during the feeding process.

PETA argues that the killing of pigs is cruel and will be ineffective since without widespread sterilization, as pigs are killed, more pigs will be born. Pigs from other territories will also start filling the territories of the pigs who have been killed.

According to the World Health Organisation, control programmes for this virus include mosquito control and vaccination of pigs and humans. Several vaccines are already available and others are under development.

Countries which have had major epidemics of this virus in the past but which have now controlled the disease primarily by vaccination (not by the killing of pigs), include China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.

Write to the BMC and demand that it drop the plan to slaughter pigs and work to prevent the Japanese encephalitis virus through vaccination, a method that has already proved effective in other countries, instead. Also, urge the BMC to stop the breeding of mosquitoes by clearing garbage and stagnant pools of water. Please send a copy of your letter to the executive health officer, Dr Ramesh Kathuria.