Rising cases of dog-bite

After seeing the Sindh government’s failure to properly control the barrage of dog-bite cases in the province over the past several years, the courts have intervened to set things right. A district and sessions court in Ghotki has ordered registration of FIRs against municipal officers of the district for the dog-bite cases taking place there from Oct 27 to Nov 9. The court’s order is in line with the Sindh High Court’s directions of Oct 21 to the police to register FIRs against chief municipal officers for all dog-bite cases that occurred within their municipalities. The law prescribes six months’ imprisonment and also loss of job. The high court had also asked deputy commissioners of all districts to monitor the campaign against stray dogs and municipal officers to submit weekly reports in the local courts. Two such FIRs have been registered in Matiari and Hyderabad districts.

Since 2019, thousands of dog-bite incidents have occurred in the province. In 2020 up to September, 150,000 cases have taken place with Karachi topping the list with 17,800 cases and Umerkot the last in the list with 7,500 cases. Statistics for other districts are between these two figures. In 2019, as many as 195,761 cases of dog-bite had occurred. Figures are not available on deaths from rabies. A few months ago the Sindh government had announced a detailed procedure for culling stray dogs on a scientific basis. Unfortunately, so far not much progress seems to have been made in this regard.

The situation is frightening as the government has expressed its inability to provide an adequate number of vaccines for dog-bite, saying earlier vaccines were imported from India and now it is not possible. For the past several years, vaccine is available in the open market at prices beyond the reach of the common people. Is there only one country in the entire world from where vaccines at affordable prices can be imported? The government’s plea is hardly convincing. Prolonged power outages at night have further worsened the situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2020.

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