Humane way to control rabies

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

The Health Ministry will never adopt the practice of killing stray dogs to control rabies. The ministry conducted discussions with all animal rights protection organizations and came to an agreement with them to hand over each district to an organization to implement the dog sterilization programme, Health Ministry sources said. According to the sources, the ministry held extensive discussions with animal rights protection organizations and NGOs involved in animal welfare activities and granted permission to allow them to implement dog sterilization program. Eight such organizations took part in discussions. The ministry spends over Rs. 1000 million annually for rabies control programmes which include vaccinating dogs and treating patients with dog bites. Around 2000 dog bites are reported daily around the country.

The stray dog population is rapidly increasing and there is an estimated 4000 stray dogs in the Colombo Port area. There are stray dogs in state hospitals which often they bite hospital staff and patients.

The stray dog vaccination programme has certain weaknesses, such as, differentiations in statistics and the actual number of vaccinated dogs. Only domestic dogs get a tag around their neck once vaccinated and the dog owner makes sure that his/her dog gets the next shot of the same birth control vaccine on time, sources said. "Meanwhile, many ordinary people say that some NGOs involved in animal welfare and animal rights protection receive millions of dollars from foreign countries, but, only spend a small amount of those funds to vaccine dogs against rabies and to give one shot of birth control vaccine to some of stray dogs which automatically leads to an increase in the stray dog population. But the best available method of controlling the stray dog population is sterilizing both male and female dogs.

If there are no stray dogs in the country, the NGOs will not have any work and will be compelled to close down", they pointed out.