A career vet in real life? It's not like the movies at all.

About this episode

Dr. Barani shares his unique experiences as a veterinarian treating lions infected with COVID-19.

Most regular veterinarians spend their time around dogs and cats, but unusual things can happen. And this was Dr. Barani's experience. Lions in the local zoo had caught Covid and volunteers were required to care for them. It's not as if Covid was not already causing havoc. Here, the problems were multifold. As Dr. Barani says: We had some 12 lions who tested positive for COVID. The lions come under a family called cats. C -A -T -S. Big cats. Right. Okay. Actually, felines. So, like how a cat gets COVID virus. the lion can also get a COVID virus. One of the zookeepers had COVID and he passed on to the lion. So, we had 12 lions that were positive for COVID and we needed to treat them. It took us one and a half days to actually organize a treatment for them because you cannot restrain them. They are horribly aggressive. Plus they are sick. We had different gadgets and In fact, one of some of the major things we did here, which nobody does throughout the world, is we actually pulled the lion's tail through the cages. And we connected something called the large bore cannulas that we use for humans. Let us say for a dialysis or any other procedure. So those cannulas were collected in…

People in this episode

Host: Venu Gopal Nair

Guest: Dr. Barani

Topics covered

• veterinary medicine
• COVID-19
• animal care
• zoo experiences
• big cats
• treatment challenges

Keywords

• veterinarian
• lions
• COVID-19
• animal treatment
• zoo
• big cats
• veterinary challenges

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: local zoo

Places: coccygeal vein

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