Bogus vaccines contribute to human rabies death toll in China

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

 

 

Bogus vaccines contribute to human rabies death toll in China

 

BEIJING--Counterfeit human post-exposure rabies vaccine has

resurfaced as a factor in the fast-rising human rabies death toll in

China, Chinese media reported in late July 2007. The fake vaccine

reappeared two years after officials believed it had all been

destroyed, following the deaths of two boys who received worthless

" post-exposure " treatment.

Human rabies deaths in China have increased from 163 in 1996

to 3,215 in 2006, with 1,043 in the first five months of 2007. The

rise is roughly parallel to the increasing popularity of dogs as

pets--but the rabies cases are overwhelmingly concentrated in the

southern and coastal areas where dogs are raised for meat. So-called

" meat dogs " are not required to be vaccinated, unlike pet dogs.

For the second consecutive year dogs were massacred amid

spring rabies panics in Qhongqing province. News coverage of the

killing was suppressed, unlike in 2006, when the officially

directed dog purges were much criticized by both official news media

and on public Internet forums.

Also suppressed--but not entirely--was coverage of an April

24, 2007 incident in Huoyanyuan, Nanjing, in which, according to

Wang Feng of the Southern Metropolis Daily, a small mob of both men

and women whose sleep had been disturbed by barking burned a mother

dog and her litter of two.

" After the news story broke in the Modern Express Daily on

April 26, " Wang Feng wrote, " netizens by the hundreds showed up at

the forums to call for respect for life, to establish laws to

protect animals, and to condemn " the offenders. The burned dog and

her surviving puppy were taken for medical care. Many established an

open-air altar to commemorate the dead puppy, with wreaths of fresh

flowers. Someone published the identity, work address, home

address, office number and personal mobile telephone number of the

person who set the dogs on fire. Many people waited outside her

office and harassed her when she came out. They published

photographs and videos of her on the Internet, " and petitioned her

employer and the city of Nanjing to take action against her.

The city responded by proposing an animal control ordinance.

Like others in China, it would restrict dog-keeping to approved

breeds, of less than 35 centimeters in height. Dogs would be barred

from hospitals, schools, museums, theaters, restaurants,

shopping malls, hotels, kindergartens, playgrounds, scenic spots,

banks, and other financial institutions.

Nanjing officials told China Daily that the estimated 93,000

dogs in the city were responsible for 30,000 reported bites in 2006.

A similar ordinance was introduced almost simultaneously in

Hangzhou Estimating that fewer than half of the dogs in Hangzhou

are licensed, city spokespersons said that complaints about dogs made

up 43% of the total volume of public complaints that the city

received.

Beijing had 703,879 licensed dogs as of August 2007, up

100,000 in the first half of the year. Bites were up 34%, to 83,000.

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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