• Govt slumbers as thousands mauled by stray dogs in three months
• At least 10 patients lost lives during the same period
• Growing canine population linked with dog bite cases

KARACHI: While cases of dog attacks have been seeing a sharp increase over the months, the government seems least bothered about the issue which has claimed at least 10 lives in three months at two hospitals alone, it emerged on Thursday.

According to sources, the alarming situation could be gauged from the fact that over 230 cases of dog bite injuries have been reported on two consecutive days at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi this week.

The hospital, they said, routinely received over a thousand cases of dog-bite every month.

At the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, over 2,400 patients reported with dog-bite injuries over the past two months. This includes two deaths from rabies. The hospital saw more than 15,000 cases last year.

Sources said the CHK this year had no case of rabies — a fatal but vaccine-preventable viral disease. Dogs, according to experts, are the main source of human rabies, contributing up to 99 per cent of all rabies transmissions to humans.

The deadly infection reportedly claimed at least 10 lives in three months in the city.

“The situation is extremely worrisome; not only are cases of dog-bite increasing every month, the incidence of rabies has also risen. This year so far, we have received around 3,000 new cases (excluding the patients who reported for a follow-up) of dog-bite injuries while eight patients have reported with rabies since December 2023 at the hospital,” Aftab Gohar, the manager of The Indus Hospital’s Rabies Prevention and Training Centre, told Dawn. All the eight patients died later on.

According to Mr Gohar, patients are coming from all over the city, though a significant number of them belong to the low-income areas. Forty per cent of these cases constituted children.

“At times, there is an outbreak where a single dog injures several people. Last year, we treated over 13,000 new cases with six rabies cases.”

Mr Gohar believed that the continued increase in dog bite cases was directly linked to the growing canine population in the city that, he said, could only be controlled through mass dog vaccination and sterilisation.

“This is very much possible as has been proved by our three-year pilot project in Karachi where we were able to drastically reduce dog bite cases in some areas of the city.”

He also emphasised the need for setting up dedicated centres at district level for treatment and management of dog-bite injuries.

Project still in infancy

About concerns over growing population of dogs in the city, Project Director of Rabies Control Programme Sindh (RCPS) Sumera Hussain said when she took over the job in October last year, the project was almost halted due to a paucity of funds and that the staff hadn’t been paid salaries for six months.

“We have been able to revive the project and pay the financial liabilities after receiving funds of Rs50m last month. Today, three centres with technical staff including dog-catchers are fully functional in Nazimabad, Maymar and district South. We are planning another one in Orangi,” she said, adding that 13 centres were needed to be built across Sindh under the project launched in 2022.

“We are developing an app for reporting complaints on street dogs and making the helpline functional. In addition, there is a plan to collect baseline data on the stray dog population.”

She also pointed out that RCPS was a technical body with a defined role and that district municipal corporations were primarily responsible for controlling dog population in their respective areas under the local government rules.

Launched in 2021, the RCPS aims to end human deaths caused by rabies.

The objective was planned to be achieved through mass vaccination and sterilisation of dogs and education of communities.

Unfortunately, the project has so far failed to make an impact mainly on account of lack of government interest in the matter. This is very much indicated by its poor performance so far.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2024