Needed: better urban planning, not mass culling of dogs

Anyone on a road journey through Kerala these days is likely to see banners and posters at many junctions showing gruesome images of children bitten by dogs and calling for a wholesale culling of street dogs. The media have played host to heated debates where everybody, from the common man on the streets to the political heavyweights, have weighed in on the need for mass culling to get the State rid of what everyone appears to have decided is a public menace. Amidst the furore, there are also frail voices of Gandhians and animal lovers trying to remind the public that dog is man’s best friend and the reasons for such a massive increase in the population of street dogs have not been completely understood. There is an astounding level of ignorance among the public about the issue.

Going by World Health Organisation (WHO) norms of 2003, one person dies every 30 minutes due to rabies across the globe, and there occurs one instance of dog bite every two seconds. India accounts for a lion’s share of death due to rabies. But, rabies deaths are relatively less frequent in Kerala, thanks to intense post-exposure vaccination.

In India, almost every case of death by rabies is caused by dog bites. Rabies is a disease of canines and spreads to other species, including humans, only through bites. Rabies virus normally stays in the host for up to 90 or 95 days. A rabid dog’s saliva carries the virus 4-5 days before the symptoms appear and 4-5 days that follow, after which it dies. A ‘chance infection’ is possible if a pet infected with rabies licks a person. Rabies can appear in both ‘dumb’ and ‘furious’ forms. The dumb form is when dogs hide in some dark corner but seldom bite, unless provoked. The furious form is when dogs that wander aimlessly bite people, but after provocation.