Young Yash Singh was playing with dogs in his neighborhood of Sangam Vihar, in the Indian capital, when one of them, suddenly aggressive, bit his hand. Like this 12-year-old boy, hundreds of injured people file every day at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi to urgently receive a rabies vaccine. Deepak Yadav, 16, accompanies a friend who had his calf caught on a motorbike. “Street dogs are a scourge,” he says before joining his friend at the Dog Bite Center, dedicated to bites. canines. The place occupies the entire basement of this public establishment. Proof of the scale of the problem, this hospital declared last March that it had treated nearly 30,000 cases over the previous six months.
Recently, several deadly attacks have shaken public opinion, such as that suffered by Parag Desai, director of Wagh Bakri Tea Group, one of the largest Indian tea exporters. In mid-October, while trying to escape a pack of stray dogs near his home in Ahmedabad, the 49-year-old businessman fell to his death. The city hospital, where he died, said it had seen an influx of “many cases due to dog bites or accidents caused by stray animals” in recent times.
The majority of victims are believed to be children.
Not a week goes by without an attack of this type. In February, a pack of dogs attacked a four-year-old child in Hyderabad, who died of his injuries. In March, in New Delhi, two brothers aged 8 and 12 lost their lives after being mutilated. In Rajasthan, a newborn was killed in his hospital bed by dogs. In September, a teenager died of rabies in the suburbs of New Delhi after being bitten. The boy had not informed his parents and when the illness appeared, it was too late.
India is the country with the most deaths from rabies on the planet (36% of victims worldwide). Endemic, the virus causes between 18,000 and 20,000 deaths each year, the vast majority due to dogs. This tragic end is however avoidable if we vaccinate after the bite. The majority of victims are children under 15, who do not always report accidents. “The situation is out of control, because animal protection policies in India are being implemented at the expense of human health,” laments Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington.
India has some 60 million stray dogs and between 6 and 17 million bites per year, according to estimates. “Animal protection laws are well intentioned, but most municipalities do not have a sterilization or vaccination plan for them,” says Ramanan Laxminarayan. However, these are effective solutions, according to animal defense associations. Some municipalities, such as Bombay or Jaipur, and certain regions, are examples. The State of Goa has thus eradicated rabies in humans (no cases since 2018). But others, like Kerala (South-East), are experiencing a resurgence: 200,000 people were bitten last year and the number of dogs infected with rabies has doubled since 2017. Distraught, the authorities filed a complaint before the Supreme Court in order to be able to kill stray dogs, which triggered the anger of the population.
Indians have, in fact, always coexisted with street dogs. The Constitution also stipulates compassion towards animals. Principles anchored in Hinduism practiced by more than 80% of the population. “Among the sixty stray dogs in our neighborhood, only a few are dangerous, but when we complain to the municipality, they do nothing and do not authorize us to act,” regrets Shukla, a resident of the south from New Delhi. As a result, dogs that have bitten several residents continue to roam and terrorize residents. “A human who inflicts a bite requiring stitches would be sent to prison,” says public health expert Ramanan Laxminarayan. “Animals must have rights, but also responsibilities,” he concludes. The idea sometimes seems difficult to get across in this country which makes them sacred.
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