Canine terror

Canine terror in Kashmir continues unabated with authorities hardly doing anything to control the menace. At almost every second street corner in the valley one sees dozens of stray dogs on prowl. Hospitals report scores of dog bite cases every day. Shocking figures released by Anti Rabies Clinic at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital reveal that 52594 persons have been bitten by the dogs from 2013 to September 2021. Of them, 2780 people were bitten from April to September this year. Figures reveal that 6041 dog bite cases were reported to SMHS hospital in 2013-14, 7324 in 2015-16, 6548 in 2016-17, 6802 2017-18, 6399 in 2018-19, 6984 in 2019-20 and 4798 in 2020-21. Coupled with the dumping of the poultry and other wastes in the open spaces, the dogs are having field day given the availability of the food. Experts say that throwing household waste in the open is one of the major reasons for the increase in the population of dogs. According to a dog census conducted by Srinagar Municipal Corporation, there were 49000 dogs in Srinagar city in 2012-13. The unofficial census of 2011 put the population of dogs in Srinagar city at 32000. Around one lakh poultry birds are slaughtered every day which generates 40000 kilos of waste that caters to the food needs of the stray dogs.  Sensing the gravity of the situation, the central government has now made rabies a notifiable disease. As per WHO estimates, India is endemic for rabies accounting for 36 percent of the World’s deaths. However, the deaths due to rabies are grossly underreported in our country due to various reasons. Of the 59,000 annual human deaths estimated to occur globally due to dog-mediated rabies, about 35% occur in India. Over three-quarters of cases in India occur in rural communities with poor access to diagnostic facilities and post-exposure prophylaxis, which are key to preventing development of disease. More than 95% of cases are caused by dog bites, largely because of the approximately 60 million stray dogs in the country, and many cases of human rabies go undetected, are misdiagnosed or are under-reported. A significant proportion of cases (over one-third in a recent study) are children, and despite the availability of vaccines, awareness of and access to post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), including rabies immunoglobulin, continue to be poor. Despite the high burden of human rabies in India, the disease is not notifiable and a structured surveillance system is yet to be put in place. Rabies is not included in the list of diseases for which surveillance is routinely carried out by states and reported under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Project of the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare [9]. Instead, dog bites and snake bites are to be reported separately. The absence of an organised national or regional system for rabies surveillance compounds the problem of poor availability of human and animal rabies incidence data. To address the issue, National Rabies Control Programme (NRCP) is being implemented in the country. In Kashmir too, both municipalities as well as the citizens can fulfil their responsibilities to control the menace. People should desist from throwing waste in the open and at the same time, the municipalities should adopt the latest measures to control the population of stray dogs.