Dog Bites on the Rise in Hyderabad: Posing a Potential Threat of Rabies

Dog bite on the rise
Posted on January 30, 2012

In Hyderabad, the number of stray dogs is increasing day by day, posing a potential threat of rabies in the city. Rabies is a very painful and deadly viral disease, that invades the central nervous system and disrupts its functioning. It is spread through the bite of affected animals, usually dogs, bats and foxes, but can affect any animal, it is present in their saliva. I am a young doctor from Hyderabad, have spent a year now in civil hospital, and on average have seen 5 to 6 cases of dog bites daily, including all age groups and children being the most affected one. These cases are not all from Hyderabad, few are referred from nearby villages and cities. In US, rabies is rarely spread through the bites of dogs and other rabid animals, because most of the animals are vaccinated in the states, but in our part of the world, where half of the human population is not vaccinated for the common preventable diseases, how can one talk about ‘vaccinating the animals’. Here, in our settings, killing dogs by giving them poisonous capsules or transferring them to some other place are the only valid options. Administration may adopt an animal birth control method to control the increasing population of stray dogs. I hope that the responsible administration is aware of the deadly outcome of rabies, and will soon initiate a full-fledged campaign to take some actions to prevent dog bites and rabies.

Dr. Mubashir H. Shaikh
Hyderabad

This was published in Dawn on 4th of feb 2012, and in Frontier Post on 30th of january 2012