Animal welfare activists on Saturday asked the government to declare rabies, one of the most dreadful disease, as a notifiable disease both for humans and animals.
Experts and animal welfare activists participating in a three-day “India For Animals 2014” international conference in Jaipur also advocated the need to initiate a campaign to make India rabies free. This could be done by the government with the support of the animal welfare groups.
Chinny Krishna, vice chairman of the Chennai-based, Animal Welfare Board of India, a government statutory body said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) data around 205 billion people in 100 countries are at risk of contracting this disease. It is the tenth biggest cause of infectious disease and the most effected areas are Africa, Asia and South America.
Mr. Krishna said since 1985, India has reported an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 human deaths from rabies caused by the dog bites.
“The Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI), in its last report in 2013 said that there were only 232 deaths due to dog bite. But our estimate is more than 5000 humans lose their lives annually in India because of the rabies caused by dog bites. Since it is not a notifiable disease this figure is likely to be underestimated. In order to produce an authentic estimate of the incidence of rabies in India, making rabies a notifiable disease in order to have population wise data of confirmed cases” said Mr. Krishna.
According to various studies of the animal welfare groups the main biting animal is dog followed by cats and other animals. The control of stray dog population by neutering and immunization by mass vaccination of stray animals with annual boosters holds the promise of controlling and eventually eradicating the disease from the country.
The chief executive of the world’s largest dog welfare charity United Kingdom’s Dogs Trust, Clarissa Baldwin said dogs welfare is a challenging proposition and Dogs Trust cared for almost 17,000 dogs last year in United Kingdom. In the last 20 years the number of dogs euthanised by the government has reduced dramatically from 30,000 to 6,500 each year.
Famous Hollywood actor Brigitte Bardot’s foundation is supporting a programme in Sikkim that would make Sikkim, the first rabies-free State in India. Since 2006 it has been funding a care programme of sterilisation and vaccination that has curbed the proliferation of dogs and cats, more than 80,000 dogs have already benefited from the programme. The Brigitt Bardot Foundation is also working in Dharmshala, Ladakh and Bodh Gaya.
Mission Rabies, another global welfare organisation that is working in Goa hopes to eliminate rabies from the world by 2030. Mission Rabies experts Iilona Otter and Kate Shervil said that under a massive programme undertaken in September 2013 in India, 60,000 dogs were vaccinated.
The Health in Suffering, a Jaipur based organization on an annual basis vaccinates and sterilise 3000 to 4000 dogs and its effort has made Jaipur a rabies-free city.
