Articles about the Mouding County rabies purge

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50,000 dogs killed for rabies prevention

(Shanghai Daily)

2006-08-01

 

ON Saturday, a woman was walking her dog - a small white animal she'd had

for a long time - in a Yunnan Province alley.

 

Several men approached, talked her into handing them the leash and then beat

the dog to death as the owner looked on in horror.

 

The killing was only a small part of a campaign by Mouding County government

officials to slaughter 50,000 canines between July 25 and Sunday, local

media reported.

 

The campaign was touched off by reports that at least three people had died

recently in the county from rabies and many others had been bitten.

 

On Saturday, officials said that 90 percent of the dogs had been killed, and

they expected to finish their work on Sunday.

 

Witnesses indicated the slaughter was often carried with the sort of

dramatic elements found in a grade-B horror film.

 

Around midnight, shadows would flash along the walls of homes as men

carrying clubs made noises to set the village dogs barking. Homing in on the

sounds, the men would find their quarries, and the barks would be replaced

by shrill yelps as the animals were dispatched.

 

Only military dogs guarding an ammunition storehouse and police dogs were

allowed to survive.

 

Dog attacks

 

The campaign followed a series of human and livestock deaths and injuries

from dog attacks.

 

This year, 360 of the county's 200,000 people reportedly suffered dog bites.

Five were hospitalized since July 20 alone.

 

Since April, three people died of rabies in the county, one a 4-year-old

girl.

 

Two cows and three pigs were also found dead after dog attacks.

 

Health authorities began to vaccinate the county's canines, but as the dog

attacks increased, government officials decided they needed to take more

drastic action.

 

To ensure public safety, the county government decided to kill all dogs.

They set up a task force, led by the director of the public security bureau,

to take charge of the campaign.

 

Authorities first encouraged dog owners to kill their own pets, offering a 5

yuan incentive (62 US cents), and then sent in the task force to finish

those that escaped the first-round slaughter.

 

The midnight raids were carried out by the task force officers.

 

According to Chinese media reports, several methods were used to kill the

dogs, including clubbing, hanging, electrocution and drugs.

 

Although most villagers said they understood the necessity for campaign,

others thought it was brutal - and unnecessary. About 4,000 dogs in the

county had been vaccinated against rabies.

 

A local veterinary authority official surnamed Liang explained that only 85

percent of the vaccinations would be effective, however.

 

" With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill

the dogs, " Xinhua news agency quoted Li Haibo, spokesman for the county

government, as saying.

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-08/01/content_654307_2.htm

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Dog cull in China to fight rabies

By Quentin Sommerville

BBC News, Shanghai

1 August 2006

 

Only police and military dogs were spared

 

A county in south-west China has ordered all 50,546 dogs to be killed to

fight a rabies outbreak which has killed three people, state media says.

 

It has taken five days, but authorities in Mouding County in south-west

China say they have killed almost all of the 50,000 dogs in the area.

 

Some of the dogs were clubbed to death in the street as their owners

watched.

 

Other dog owners took matters into their own hands, poisoning or

electrocuting their pets.

 

They were paid around $0.60 (£0.32) for each dog in compensation.

 

China has a poor record of animal protection. There are no laws to prevent

cruelty to pets.

 

The local government ordered the cull following an outbreak of rabies.

 

Three people in the county, including a four-year-old girl, have died from

the disease. A further 360 were bitten by dogs, the authorities say.

 

However, even the 4,000 dogs that had been immunised against rabies were put

to death in case the immunisations were not effective.

 

Roadside checkpoints were set up to ensure that no dogs escaped. Only police

and military dogs have been spared.

 

There are a growing number of animal rights activists in China and the

country has laws protecting endangered species. But there are no regulations

to protect other animals, including pets.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5233704.stm

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Yunnan culls 50,000 dogs to purge rabies

Jonathan Watts in Beijing

August 1, 2006

The Guardian

 

Police and public health officials in southern China have clubbed, hanged or

electrocuted almost 50,000 dogs in a week-long crackdown on rabies, local

media reported today.

 

Slaughter squads in Mouding, Yunnan province, grabbed pets from their owners

while they were out for walks and beat them to death on the spot, the

Shanghai Daily reported.

 

Dog owners were offered a 5 yuan (40 pence) reward for killing their own

animals. Those who attempted to hide their pets indoors were flushed out by

late-night squads that made loud noises outside to make the dogs bark.

 

The cull was ordered after three local people, including a four-year-old

girl, died of rabies within six months. According to the state media, 360 of

Mouding county's 200,000 residents had suffered dog bites this year. Pigs

and cows have also been attacked.

 

Despite a vaccination programme that saw 4,000 animals inoculated, the

number of dog attacks continued to rise, prompting the drastic methods.

Officials in Mouding refused to comment.

 

" With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill

the dogs, " Li Haibo, a spokesman, was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news

agency.

 

The slaughter began on July 25. Of the 50,000 dogs in the county, only army

dogs and police dogs were spared.

 

Animal rights campaigners said the cull was unnecessary. " This is a barbaric

act inflicted upon innocent dogs, " said Meng Xiaoshe, editor of the Dog

Daily website.

 

" Among the dead animals there must be some with a licence and a vaccination

certificate. How can the local government order their execution so suddenly

and so simply? "

 

According to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the

number of rabies cases in China has risen in recent years, with 2,651 deaths

reported in 2004. The centre's figures suggest it is a bigger killer than

Aids and hepatitis combined.

 

The increase is partly down to a boom in pet ownership. Many families keep

dogs but only 3% vaccinate their animals.

 

China's culture of piracy has also exacerbated the problem. Last year, two

boys in Guangdong province died of rabies, a disease that their parents

thought they had been inoculated against. Police later found 40,000 boxes of

fake vaccine.

 

[Photograph: An official throws a dog that has been clubbed to death onto a

collection truck in Mouding. AP]

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1834883,00.html

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Chinese county massacres 50,000 dogs

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

Associated Press Writer

August 1, 2006

 

SHANGHAI, China -- A county in southwestern China has killed as many as

50,000 dogs in a government campaign ordered after three people died from

rabies, official media reported Tuesday.

 

The five-day massacre in Yunnan province's Mouding county spared only

military guard dogs and police canine units, the Shanghai Daily reported,

citing local media.

 

Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and beaten on the spot, the

newspaper said. Other killing teams entered villages at night, creating

noise to get dogs barking, then honing in and beating them to death.

 

Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their dogs before the teams

were sent in, the report said.

 

The massacre was widely discussed on the Internet, with both legal scholars

and animal rights activists criticizing it as crude and cold-blooded. The

World Health Organization said more emphasis needed to be placed on

prevention.

 

" Wiping out the dogs shows these government officials didn't do their jobs

right in protecting people from rabies in the first place, " Legal Daily, a

newspaper run by the central government's Politics and Law Committee, said

in an editorial in its online edition.

 

Dr. Francette Dusan, a WHO expert on diseases passed from animals to people,

said effective rabies control required coordinated efforts between human and

animal health agencies and authorities.

 

" This has not been pursued adequately to date in China with most control

efforts consisting of purely reactive dog culls, " Dusan said.

 

The Shanghai Daily said 360 of Mouding county's 200,000 residents suffered

dog bites this year. The three rabies victims included a 4-year-old girl,

the report said.

 

" With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill

the dogs, " Li Haibo, a spokesman for the county government was quoted as

saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

 

Calls to county government offices rang unanswered on Tuesday.

 

China has seen a major rise in the number of rabies cases in recent years,

with 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which

data was available, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and

Prevention.

 

Experts have tied the rise in part to an increase in dog ownership,

particularly in rural areas where about 70 percent of households keep dogs.

Only about 3 percent of Chinese dogs are vaccinated against rabies,

according to the center. Access to appropriate treatment is highly limited,

especially in the countryside.

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_China_Dogs_Killed.html

=======================================

World Health Organization

 

Human and animal rabies

 

Rabies: A neglected disease

 

Rabies is a vaccine-preventable disease, and it is still a significant

public health problem in many countries of Asia and Africa, even though

safe, effective vaccines for both human and veterinary use exist. Most of

the 55 000 deaths from rabies reported annually around the world occur in

Asia and Africa, and most of the victims are children: 30–50% of the

reported cases of rabies—and therefore deaths—occur in children under 15

years of age. The main route of transmission is the bites of rabid dogs.

Most of the children who die from rabies were not treated or did not receive

adequate post-exposure treatment. Although the efficacy and safety of modern

cell culture vaccines have been recognized, some Asian countries still

produce and use nervous tissue vaccines, which are less effective, require

repeated visits to the hospital and often have severe side-effects.

Moreover, these patients do not receive the necessary rabies immunoglobulin,

because of a perennial global shortage and because of its high price, so

that it is unaffordable in countries where canine rabies is endemic.

 

Due to complete absence of any successful medical treatment for clinical

rabies and the horrific nature of the disease, most rabies victims die at

home rather than being admitted to a hospital in abysmal conditions. These

circumstances add to the notorious lack of surveillance data.

Underestimating the health implications of rabies leads many high ranking

decision-makers in public health and animal health to perceive rabies as a

rare disease of humans resulting from a bite of an uneconomically important

animal (the dog). Therefore, rabies usually falls between two stools and is

not dealt with appropriately either by the Ministry of Health or the

Ministry of Agriculture.

 

WHO strategies for human rabies prevention

 

wider access to appropriate post-exposure treatment using modern tissue

culture or avian embryo-derived rabies vaccines through use of the

multi-site intradermal regimen to reduce the cost of post-exposure

treatments

possible domestic production of rabies biologicals, which are in critical

short supply globally, particularly rabies immunoglobulin

continuing education of health and veterinary professionals in rabies

prevention and control

 

WHO strategies for dog rabies control and eventual elimination

 

organization of sustainable mass dog vaccination campaigns

dog population management through reduction of strays, control of trade and

movement of dogs, reduction of populations through spaying and neutering

public health education strategies

 

http://www.who.int/rabies/en/