FWD (CN) China cracks down on rabid dog menace

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http://www.thestar.com/News/article/238729

 

Rabies, passed to humans by stray dogs like this shelter animal or

unvaccinated pets, has become China's deadliest infectious disease.

 

(People from the provinces) don't know how to deal with a bite ... and they

don't seek proper treatment Dr. Luo Tingrong, Guangxi University World

health agency probes epidemic's cause as 2008 Olympics in Beijing approaches

 

Jul 23, 2007 04:30 AM

Bill Schiller

ASIA BUREAU

 

BEIJING-Huagong Road, on the southeastern reaches of Beijing, is a dusty

stretch of ramshackle auto repair shops, family-run restaurants and -

unfortunately for Wu Qingshan - the occasional stray dog.

 

A 22-year-old cook, Wu had come to Beijing just four months ago, as do many

people from China's far-flung provinces, to cash in on the capital's

economic boom and seek a better life.

 

But a chance encounter with a small, feral dog ended all that.

 

Early this month, Wu became the latest victim of a rabies epidemic that has

astonished national and international health officials.

 

According to official health figures, rabies is now the deadliest infectious

disease in China. Rarely fatal in the West, rabies is killing more than 200

people here per month, outpacing tuberculosis deaths in 13 of the last 14

months.

 

The rise of rabies, a virus passed from animals to humans that attacks the

central nervous system, has been relentless.

 

In 1996, figures show only 163 Chinese died from rabies.

 

Last year, the disease killed 3,215.

 

" The World Health Organization is extremely concerned about the number of

cases in China, " says Dr. Nima Asgari, the WHO's communicable disease

specialist in Beijing. " The reason for the rise is currently under

investigation. "

 

Chinese media have also reported, in what may be an isolated case, that

officials are investigating bogus human rabies vaccines still in circulation

after having been removed from shelves two years ago.

 

Last year, desperate to stem the epidemic, public health officials touched

off an international storm of criticism by ordering a mass extermination of

dogs in some areas.

 

In the province of Yunnan, officials clubbed, hanged or electrocuted more

than 50,000 dogs in a single week. In the county of Mouding, Chinese media

reported roving squads seizing dogs from their owners, killing the pets on

the spot.

 

Beijing restaurant owner and Wu's former employer, Sun Ming, says that's

exactly what he did to the wild dog that bit his short-order cook.

 

" He was just a kid, " Sun says of Wu. " He was from Shaanxi province, a nice

young guy, an ordinary worker. He'd been here four months. "

 

Sun says that another worker was bitten by the same dog that late May

afternoon - but the other worker got rabies shots after the incident and is

fine.

 

Wu did not.

 

" We tried to persuade him, but he wouldn't go, " Sun says. " I think he just

thought it wasn't that serious. "

 

Six weeks later, on July 1, Wu complained of serious shortness of breath.

The following day, Sun says he brought him to three different hospitals and

he was finally admitted to The People's Hospital, where he was confirmed to

have rabies.

 

He died there July 4.

 

Wu's father has claimed it was the restaurant owner's own dog that bit his

son.

 

But Sun Ming disputes that, producing a plastic folder containing dog

registration, ownership papers and rabies vaccination documents dating back

two years.

 

" That's not true, " he says firmly.

 

The very night Wu died, a team of district and city health specialists

swooped in on Sun's restaurant, scrubbing it from top to bottom and ordering

all staff and Sun himself to be vaccinated.

 

" They moved quickly. They paid for everything. They did a proper job, " says

Sun.

 

With the 2008 Olympics only a year away now, Beijing wants to make sure

nothing goes wrong, especially on the health front.

 

As recently as 2000, not a single person died in Beijing due to rabies.

 

But last year there were a dozen.

 

Local officials want that number lowered; eliminated if possible.

 

Police have got tough enforcing a 2003 " one-family, one-dog " policy in eight

city districts and have rounded up unregistered dogs.

 

Under the rule of Mao Zedong, pet ownership was frowned upon as bourgeois

and decadent. But today, with China's rising middle-class, pet ownership has

become popular. Those defying the one-dog policy can be seen in Beijing

walking their pets after dark.

 

The city is home to 550,000 registered canines. But there is believed to be

an equal number still unregistered.

 

With such a large dog population, unfriendly interactions are bound to

occur. And they do.

 

More than 140,000 people turned up at city hospitals last year to be treated

for dog bites - all the more reason for the government to insist on dog

vaccinations.

 

In front of Sun's restaurant, dog owner Guo Lianxiang was taking his bulldog

Da Tou (Big Head), for an early evening stroll. " Oh, he's been vaccinated, "

he said of the 4-year-old male. " We've got the papers. "

 

He applauds the government's get-tough policy on one family, one dog, and

the fact that dog vaccinations are free.

 

" Previously the country wasn't rich enough to afford to pay. But things are

different now. "

 

It's the registration that costs: $140 the first year for owners in central

Beijing, about $70 annually thereafter. That's real money in a city where

the average per capita annual income is about $6,600.

 

But out in the countryside, especially in the south, is where the real

problem lies, says Dr. Luo Tingrong, a professor of veterinary medicine at

Guangxi University.

 

Five key provinces - including Guangxi - account for more than 70 per cent

of the problem.

 

The reasons for the outbreak are threefold, he says: Rising incomes have

meant a rapid increase in the number of dogs; far too many remain

unvaccinated; and people in the countryside, in particular, remain unaware

of the seriousness of the problem. People from the provinces, " don't know

how to deal with a bite ... and they don't seek proper treatment, " he said.

 

That might have been Wu Qingshan's problem.

 

He came from Shaanxi province.

 

What he didn't know killed him.