Feral dogs bite 500 in city in a week

Incidents of dog bite have increased alarmingly with nearly 500 cases reported in the city and from its suburbs in the last six days, officials said.

The Infectious Disease Hospital in Mohakhali recorded 110 patients on Saturday, 79 on Friday and 281 in the previous four days. They were given anti-rabies vaccination after dog bites.

'It is alarming,' said Jagodish Chandra Ghosh, a senior consultant at the IDH. 'But we have been giving intra-dermal rabies vaccine since July 2010 to prevent rabies,' he added.

After a meeting on Saturday, the government asked officials concerned to intensify the anti-rabies vaccination campaign, sources in the meeting told New Age.

Physicians at the IDH said that attacks by feral

dogs had increased in recent times despite drives against mad dogs by the Dhaka City Corporation.

The DCC kills up to 20,000 feral and rabid dogs a year, amid concerns that rabies has become a major killer in the country.

The government said more than 2,000 people died of rabies in Bangladesh annually, the highest in the world.

The IDH sources said that more than 15,000 people took treatment for animal bites at the hospital since January this year.

Eighty-two per cent of the cases were dog bites and 56 per cent of the victims were under 15 years old. Of the dogs, 71 per cent were feral dogs, 21 rabid dogs and the rest pet dogs, according to a sample survey done by, SM Emran Ali, general secretary of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in Bangladesh.

On Friday, at least 48 people, a number of them children, were injured in dog bites at Moghbazar, Uttara, Agargaon, Karwanbazar, Gabtali, Malibagh, Lalbagh, Jinjira, Azimpur, Mirpur, Khilgaon, Keraniganj, Shyamali, Gulistan and other places of the capital.

DCC officials, however, disputed the hospital figures of dog-attacks claiming that their teams regularly kill feral dogs despite protests from animal rights activists.

Incidents of dog bite increases during mating season in July-September when they usually go mad and bite people without provocation, causing infectious diseases, Emran Ali told New Age.

The DCC, which spends Tk 40,000 per month to kill dogs, has estimated more than 50, 000 dogs in the capital.

Every year more than 20,000 dogs are culled in and around Dhaka city alone, sources said.

Animal rights organisations said they supported the anti-rabies drive but demanded an end to the brutal methods used to kill dogs, including breaking their necks with tongs and beating them to death.

An animal rights activist, Rubaiya Ahmed, said 'humane' methods should be used to control the dog population.

'Considering their calls,' the DCC chief health officer, brigadier general Nasir Uddin, told New Age, 'We have planned to sterilise male feral dogs roaming the streets in the capital.

'The decision to sterilise dogs came after animal rights groups protested against culling by lethal injection,' Nasir said.

'The Strategy Plan: Elimination of Rabies in Bangladesh, 2010' says that more than 3, 00,000 people are bitten by animals annually and take post-exposure treatment with nerve tissue vaccine.

Besides, the IDH sources said that IDRV was administrated free of cost under a World Health Organisation programme.

But, a few days after the vaccine became popular, patients need to spend Tk 400 for a four-vaccination course, an official told New Age.

Source : New Age