Disease impacts cattle hides in Pakistan
Cattle hide traders and tanners in Pakistan have had to deal at the busiest time of year with an outbreak of lumpy skin disease (LSD), also known as Neethling virus, in the animals.
The festival of Eid al-Adha, when families in the Muslim world slaughter an animal and share the meat with friends, neighbours and needy people in the community, fell in early July this year.
This usually leads to high numbers of hides and skins becoming available for tanners to buy, semi-process and store for use in the months ahead.
This year, however, the outbreak of LSD has made a large volume of hides unusable, depriving tanners of cheap, locally sourced raw material and forcing hide traders to miss out on an important proportion of their revenues for the year.
