(CN) Who let the dogs out

[Guest guest]

Who let the dogs out

Chen Zhiyong

(China Daily)

2006-08-30

 

The sight of a large, unleashed wolfdog caused panic on the streets of

Beijing last Friday night. The dog was sticking out its long tongue and

walking behind its owner along Hongfu Street in Daxing District. Pedestrians

dodged left and right. Minutes later, the police took away the dog.

 

The Beijing police launched an operation last week in response to the recent

rabies outbreak in the Mouding County in Southwest China's Yunnan Province

and Jining in East China's Shandong Province.

 

The police inspections netted 230 cases of illegal dog keeping in more than

1,000 Beijing communities. Owners face fines of up to 5,000 yuan (US$617)

for keeping dogs that are not registered and have not received rabies

vaccines.

 

Rabies has been on the rise in the past decade, from about 100 cases in the

mid-1990s to 2,548 cases last year.

 

During the first half of 2006, 1,109 people died of rabies making it the

second fatal infectious disease in China. The No 1 killer was tuberculosis

which caused 1,162 deaths.

 

Beijing has not been immune to rabies. The capital had reported five cases

of rabies, and one person has died. Meanwhile, some 69,332 people in the

capital have visited hospitals for inquiries and treatment of dog bites

since January, an increase of 28 per cent over the same period last year.

 

To alleviate the public worries and make rabies prevention more effective,

the municipal police and centre for disease control have joined forces and

launched a crackdown on illegal dogs.

 

Police management

 

Pet ownership has boomed in the past decade as the result of higher incomes

and more unregistered dogs are contributing to the problem.

 

The number of the registered pet dogs reached 550,000 in Beijing this year,

an increase of more than 90,000 compared with 2005, according to Beijing

Public Security Bureau. The bureau has received more complaints from

residents about dog bites, barking and disturbances, according to Huang

Zhimin, a police officer who was in charge of the operation last week.

 

Many new dog owners become bored with their new pets and dump them. These

dogs, which are often not vaccinated, are adding to the rabies epidemic.

There are also many oversized dogs, which are not registered by owners

because the breeds are banned.

 

During the recent inspections in the Yuhuayuan community in Daxing District,

police confiscated five pet dogs, including Labrador retrievers, a Siberian

husky, and an old English sheepdog. They fell into the category of

larger-sized dogs, with a height more than 35 centimetres, which are

forbidden to be bred in urban centres.

 

" Large-sized dogs could pose more threat to other people. Though forbidden

by the law, many dog lovers in the urban areas still favour keeping those

species. Most of them could not get licences and thus receive no

vaccination, " said Huang.

 

Police take confiscated dogs to a dog pound, also receiving ownerless dogs,

which is funded by the Beijing municipal government. The dogs are fed and

vaccinated. People are allowed to adopt them.

 

The rabies solution

 

Dog vaccination is the key to preventing rabies, according to Tang Qing, one

of the leading Chinese rabies experts and a research fellow from the

Virology Institute with Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

When the vaccination rate reaches 80 per cent, the transmission of rabies

among dogs would be prevented.

 

However, that has remained a major headache for the authorities.

 

According to Beijing Agricultural Bureau, which is responsible for dogs'

vaccination, some 36,000 registered dogs have not been vaccinated. The

number of dogs with no vaccination is actually larger, since tens of

thousands of dogs have not been registered.

 

Increased density of dogs and still a low level of vaccination coverage

contributed to an increase of rabies outbreak, Tang said.

 

In fact, except Beijing and a few other capital cities, the dog vaccination

in most other regions lag farther behind the standard, with the vaccination

coverage varying between 5 per cent and 75 per cent. While the quality and

production of domestic vaccines have increased much in past years, the price

has also risen.

 

According to Tang, most farmers in the countryside are unwilling or unable

to pay a few hundred yuan to have their dogs vaccinated.

 

Meanwhile, the relatively high infection rate of rabies virus among dogs is

also responsible for a rabies outbreak, Tang noted.

 

Last year, Tang and her colleagues conducted a survey of dogs in the Guangxi

Zhuang Autonomous Region, Hunan Province, and Guizhou Province, three

regions with high incidence of rabies. Between 3 to 7 per cent of the dogs

tested had the rabies virus.

 

The rabies risk must be eliminated with a mass vaccination campaign, Tang

said.

 

However she did not agree that mass culling of dogs at the time of rabies

outbreak, which Mouding County and Jining city had adopted, is an effective

control measure.

 

" Surely there would be new dogs coming into these two regions after the

rabies outbreak passed. It means another batch of dogs are exposed to rabies

risks. So why not fund the local residents to vaccinate their dogs from the

start? " said Tang.

 

She believed educating dog owners about canine vaccination and making

vaccines accessible to them is most effective to control rabies.

 

Don't panic

 

Despite the widespread rabies fear, if a person is bitten by an infected dog

and receives proper treatment, including wound cleaning, vaccination, and

immunoglobulin, there's only a 1 per cent of contracting the disease.

 

If the person receives no treatment, he or she has a 70 per cent chance of

catching the disease.

 

In a survey of rabies cases in 2005, Tang and her colleagues found that

after people are bitten by dogs, nearly a half of exposed persons did not

receive any vaccination, about 60 per cent did not receive any wound

treatment, and about 96 per cent did not have immunoglobulin.

 

" It showed that people still have a low awareness of rabies. Getting

everyone to know the proper treatment after their exposure to rabid dogs'

bites, at present, is the most feasible measure to control rabies, " she

said.

 

(China Daily 08/30/2006 page11)

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2006-08/30/content_677196.htm