The government of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare finally issued a directive banning multi-dose vials of the non-steroidal pain-killer diclofenac in the last week of August.



For a decade, numbers of three species of vultures had been in a precipitous decline throughout the subcontinent. Millions of white-backed vultures shrank in number by 99.9% reduced to a mere 11,000 by the early 2000s. Populations of two other species – long-billed vulture and slender-billed vulture – dropped by 97%. All three are listed as critically endangered in the IUCN’s Red List.

After extensive studies, scientists identified diclofenac as the culprit. The cheap painkiller was commonly used by veterinarians to treat minor ailments in livestock, but is toxic to vultures, causing fatal gout or renal failure. When sick cattle, treated with diclofenac, died, their carcasses were disposed in the open as was the age-old practice. Hundreds of vultures stripped the meat within minutes, and died within a month.

At least 60 vultures died in January 2015 after eating a dead cow near Pani Dihing Bird Sanctuary in Sivasagar, India. Photograph: Luit Chaliha/Barcroft India

In 2006, the government banned the formulation, manufacture, and import of veterinary diclofenac. Meloxicam was promoted as a substitute anti-inflammatory drug.

The Royal Society for Protection of Birds conducted a survey for nearly three years in 11 Indian states after the ban. It found diclofenac being sold in more than a third of the pharmacies, but 70% of them had switched to meloxicam.

Vulture populations stabilised, but more action was needed. The birds continued to die, even if not in such great numbers as before.

Meloxicam was much more expensive. It didn’t find favour with veterinarians who said it wasn’t as effective as diclofenac. Instead, large 30 ml vials of diclofenac meant for humans were diverted for veterinary use. Large animals like cattle need only 10 to 15 ml.

Even though Boehringer-Ingelheim, the company that developed meloxicam, no longer held the patent, it offered its expertise to Indian manufacturers to produce better formulations. More than 30 companies then began producing the drug. It became cheaper and more acceptable to veterinarians.

Now that the government has banned these multi-dose vials, only 3 ml vials will be available. Sourcing five small ampoules for one cow will not be cheap.

The ban is likely to put a stop to vultures’ access to diclofenac. But bird conservationists say other similar drugs like nimesulide, fatal to vultures, are still being used. They want all veterinary painkillers to be tested for toxicity in vultures.

Asad Rahmani, senior scientific advisor to the Bombay Natural History Society, says, “We’ll see how the ban is being implemented. Based on the results, we’ll decide what more needs to be done.”

