Letter:

Rabies deaths and stray dogs

A few days back I heard, when listening to a news bulletin in the morning that there have been 48 deaths in our island due to Rabies. I presume this is a high figure for a small country like ours with a high standard of health facilities. Another recent news item drew my attention. It was that a foreign tourist who was doing his morning jogging was chased and attacked by stray dogs lying on his path. It may have disturbed the stray dogs. He had stated that he had to take a course of treatment at a private nursing home for his injuries which cost him a tidy sum.

This incident would have created a poor 'image' about our country's roads, where stray animals are allowed to roam or loiter as they wish, much to the discomfort of the road users. Even I have observed that our Senior Citizens who go out on their early morning strolls are in the habit of carrying sticks in their hands to meet any eventuality, in case the stray dogs who sleep on the sides of the roads happen to attack them, when their sleep gets disturbed by the sound of the joggers going along the streets.

Another very annoying and distracting sight is that the faecal matter of these stray dogs littered everywhere along most of the roads in our towns. This is a very common sight in our towns observed by the citizens who go along the streets in the morning to go to their work.

Even schoolchildren are put into great difficulties who trample on this faecal matter lying unnoticed along their way to school.

Foreign visitors to our country will form a poor opinion about the cleanliness and the health conditions of our open environment, if these situations are not arrested by the authorities who are responsible for looking into these aspects in our society.

I have observed that the proliferating of stray dogs and cats in our towns is due to the food remnants, discarded egg shells, empty yoghurt cups, empty Salmon cans and left over food items, being put into polythene bags by the households and placed opposite their houses or street junctions to be collected by the scavenging carts or tractors of the local body in the morning.

During the night or early morning, stray dogs and cats come and feast on them and then pollute the whole locality much to the annoyance of the ratepayers.

I have heard through the media that the State has to incur an expenditure about Rs 25,000 or more on drugs to treat a person bitten by stray dogs, if treated at a Government hospital. A private hospital will be charging higher, for an 'Anti-Rabies' injection course.

I presume some millions of rupees are provided in the annual estimates by the State for the control and treatment of rabies. We do not know whether it is on Government instructions that stray dogs are not rounded up by the respective Health Divisions of the Provincial Councils like formerly, on humane grounds.

Destroying stray dogs is unpopular among us as Buddhists. But in practice, we see that cattle, fowls, goats, pigs and some other domesticated animals are not shown this 'humane' sympathy by the community or the powers that be.

The best thing is for the Provincial Councils to identify areas in their provinces where stray dogs could be rounded up and kept in 'Homes', pounds, where they could be fed and looked after, after vaccinating or sterilising them. At the same time, the general public should be educated on the dreadful disease of 'Rabies' and its control and request them to get their pet dogs and cats vaccinated in their homes, so that this disease could be kept at a minimum. We hope the authorities will take very early action to get the 'stray dog' population 'off' our streets to avoid the serious situation we face at the moment.

L L Leanage - Ambalangoda