Multiple elephants in India test positive for COVID-19 after rare lion's death

• 28 elephants in a forest reserve in India diagnosed with coronavirus.
  
• Developments follows death of rare Asiatic lion, as well as a nine-year-old lioness (believed to be the first death of an animal from the virus in India).
  
• "After lions in Vandalur Zoo tested positive for COVID-19, we were asked to test the camp elephants as a precautionary measure," says forest ranger.

COIMBATORE: At least twenty-eight elephants were diagnosed with the coronavirus at a forest reserve in southern India, officials said on Wednesday, after a rare Asiatic lion lost his live to the virus.

In what is believed to be the first known death of an animal in India from the coronavirus, a nine-year-old lioness at a zoo in Chennai in Tamil Nadu state passed away in early June, local media reported.

The feline was among nine lions that had tested positive for the virus, including two who were in critical condition, Chennai's The New Indian Express newspaper reported last week.

"After lions in Vandalur Zoo tested positive for COVID-19, we were asked to test the camp elephants as a precautionary measure," a forest ranger at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in the south of Tamil Nadu told AFP on Wednesday.

Read more: Indian elephant named Osama bin Laden gets a job after being renamed ‘Krishna’

Nasal and anal samples were taken from 28 elephants, including two calves, on Tuesday, and sent to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The animals' handlers lifted their trunks to collect a sample from a nostril, according to video shared by the reserve. They also inserted swabs into the elephants' rectums.

The results are expected to arrive in a week.

"The animals had no symptoms, it was just as a precaution," the ranger said.

Read more: India re-opens major cities as new COVID-19 infections hit two-month low

"There was no difficulty in taking the sample swabs themselves as these are all trained elephants."

Some 21 tigers in a zoo in the eastern state of Jharkhand underwent virus tests last week after a 10-year-old tiger with a fever died, local media reported.

The tiger had returned a negative rapid antigen test but officials said they were also awaiting results from an RT-PCR test, the Press Trust of India reported.