Flawed rabies eradication programme

To eradicate rabies from a country, it is imperative to achieve 80% dog vaccination coverage over two consecutive years to bring about herd immunity.

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But instead, we see how far the dog rabies vaccination programme is moving away from reaching these targets.

The dog sterilisation programme has been brought to a grinding halt.

Only half of the budgetary allocation of Rs. 200 million made to the Health Ministry for dog sterilisations in 2024 has been utilised.

Although a similar budgetary allocation has been made for 2025, not a cent has been used for dog sterilisations thus far.

Dogs litter twice a year and one unspayed female dog, and theoretically there is the possibility of one unspayed female dog and her progeny producing ± 67,000 pups in 6 years. To achieve herd immunity, essential to eradicate rabies, 1.8 million dogs should have been vaccinated in 2024, but only 1.3 million dogs have been vaccinated.

Data from hospitals prove that 95% of the dog bite victims obtaining the prophylaxis have been bitten by owned dogs.

But untiring efforts are constantly made to lump all dog bites onto stray dogs, and that misinformation is given vigorous publicity, while no efforts are made to publicise the proven truth about the actual dog bite source.