For the Health wing of the city Corporation, which has been struggling to keep the pace of its Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme going, the need for revaccination of stray dogs have now come up as an urgent task, with the reporting of five rabies cases in the city in the past two months.
According to Health wing officials, the rabies immunity provided by vaccination will last only up to 1– 1.5 years.
“After a period of one to one and a half years from the time of vaccination, the dogs start losing their immunity to rabies. Earlier, we had an arrangement of going around in a vehicle and revaccinating strays that were vaccinated more than a year ago. But that was discontinued and now we do vaccination only at the veterinary hospital,” says an official.
In the past two months, five rabies cases were reported from various parts of the city, with the latest one being confirmed from Peroorkada two days ago.
Tests positive
The sample of a dead dog that was sent to the disease investigating office at Palode has been tested positive for rabies.
“There could be more cases of rabies. We come to know of it only when the public report it to us after a dog bite incident or when dogs are seen with rabies incident. The affected dogs could have bit several other stray dogs thus spreading the disease. The symptoms will be seen only after a month. There have always been occasional cases of rabies in the city. But it is being given publicity by issuing alerts,” said the official.
Vaccinating pets
The Animal Husbandry Department had recently conducted a drive to vaccinate pet dogs, considering the chances of spread of rabies.
For the Corporation’s ABC programme, the limitations on the bulk purchase of vaccine and other medicines have been a dampener, causing it to lose much momentum.
Progress hampered
Now, the programme is surviving on day-to-day purchases, which has hampered its progress.
On an average, currently only 3 to 4 dogs are being sterilised and vaccinated daily at the Veterinary Hospital in Pettah, which has a capacity to sterilise 10-15 dogs.
In a survey conducted earlier this year in 10 wards of the Corporation, a total population of around 9,000 dogs were found. Only a small percentage of these dogs have been sterilised and vaccinated till date.
