'Virtual Vets' Help Animals in India

by Sherry Morse

In India, Internet kiosks are being used to link animal owners in remote areas to veterinarians who can offer them medical advice over the World Wide Web.

Most of India's 600,000 villages are home to farm animals and companion animals; most also lack trained vets, according to Ashok Jhunjhunwala, founder of n-Logue Communications, which developed the Internet kiosks. Currently there are 450 "Vet on the Net" kiosks set up in rural villages throughout India, with plans to add another 9000 units this year.

Each kiosk has a computer with local language software, and features videoconference capabilities, with a camera allowing veterinarians to view most animals - such as cats, dogs and chickens - in real time.

If the animal is too large or too sick to fit inside the booth - a cow or a horse, for instance - the owner can email pictures to aid in the veterinarian's diagnosis.

Jhunjhunwala hopes the kiosks will cut the cost of vet care by eliminating unnecessary veterinary visits.

The Internet consultation costs about twenty rupees (about forty cents) per hour, while visits from the vet cost about 200 rupees (four dollars) per call; and for most people, traveling to a vet is time-consuming as well as expensive.

Some problems are easily diagnosed by videoconference when the symptoms are obvious, while others are more difficult to diagnose and may need a follow-up visit from a vet.

Last March, one of the Internet veterinarians helped stop the spread of a disease among chickens in the Madurai district's Pudupatti village.

After three hundred chickens died under similar circumstances, the symptoms of the disease were sent via the Internet to the department of animal husbandry in Chennai, the closest city with a veterinarian.

A doctor from the department then visited the village and vaccinated the remaining chickens for the disease before it could spread further.

© 2004 Animal News Center, Inc.