The anti-rabies clinic at the valley’s premier healthcare facility, SMHS Hospital, alone has recorded more than 17,000 cases over the past five years while several hundred cases are registered with other clinics in the city and elsewhere in the countryside. According to the statistics provided by the SMHS clinic, around 2,767 cases were reported since March this year. Over the years, according to official sources, there has been a staggering increase in the dog bite cases. In 2005, these totaled 4311, while the cases added up to 2,873 in 2006, 3434 in 2007 and 4035 in 2008. Indeed, around 98 per cent of all these cases were caused by stray dogs, they said. In the past two years, the SMHS clinic has registered four deaths following dog bites. They include a 4-year old child of south Kashmir’s Kokernag area. He was attacked by several stray dogs and was bitten on head, face and upper limbs. He was immediately rushed to the SMHS where he succumbed. Experts say the figures may be much more as several cases are registered at other clinics and many more go unreported. “Over the past year, anti-rabies clinics have been started at other hospitals. We don’t have the exact figures of how many cases are reported at these centers every month,” member of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India, Dr Muhammad Salim Khan, told Greater Kashmir, adding that numerous dog bite cases went unreported every month as many people prefer private treatment to government hospitals. “There is also a possibility of more unreported death due to rabies especially from rural areas,” he added. The figures reveal around 30 per cent of the dog bite victims have been below 10 years of age, followed by 20 per cent from 11-20 age group. These also show 55 per cent of the victims have bites on lower limbs, 15 per cent on upper limbs and 13 per cent on face and neck. Pertinently, sharp rise in the stray dog population in the valley over the past couple of years is a major cause of concern for the people. In Srinagar city alone, their population ranges between 80,000 and one lakh. The Srinagar Municipal Corporation had decided to poison stray dogs, the long awaited move aborted due to the intervention of animal activist and BJP leader, Maneka Gandhi. After much criticism last year, the SMC had decided to go for sterilization and vaccination but nothing happened on the ground. The SMC and the health department, however, shift blame on each other for failing to control the dog menace. The city mayor, Salman Sagar, said measures were being taken to curb the dog menace. He traced the failure of the civic authorities to ‘insufficient’ manpower. “Our programmes were not successful because we were not provided sufficient number of doctors by the Health Department,” he said. “We are being held hostage by various NGOs; sometimes even being dragged to courts. Still we are trying our best to control this menace and we have killed a good number of dogs,” he said. The director, Health Services, Dr Muhammad Amin, said the department’s only role in preventing rabies was to keep the medicine available. “We have only one role to play and that is to make available sufficient anti-rabies vaccines. We have kept these available in every hospital, sub-district hospital and primary health centre,” he said. “Control of dog menace is a long term drive and we have to take certain measures if we really want to control the growing population of dogs,” he added.
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