The Central province opens a peak month for rabies prevention and control

Situation of dogs allowed to roam free is still common

Although there are extremely strict regulations on managing house dogs, the situation of dogs allowed to roam free without muzzles still appears on many streets in Thanh Hoa city, especially in some communes that have just become wards. Many people have been bitten by dogs, with serious effects on their health, and some have even died from rabid dog bites.

Mr. N.T., a household in Quang Cat ward (Thanh Hoa city), angrily said: "On the road to the residential area of Street 5, where I live, there are about 5 households raising dogs. The owners mainly let their dogs roam free. Even passersby are often chased by dogs for bites. Last year, I was bitten on the leg by a dog while exercising at night, with the bite deep into my flesh and leaving a scar to this day."

From the incident that happened to him, Mr. N.T. proposed that functional agencies need to have stronger sanctions to strictly handle dog owners who lack safe impounded raising measures and often let their dogs roam free on the streets, causing danger to passersby.

According to the Thanh Hoa Sub-Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, the whole province currently has more than 300,000 households raising dogs, with about 385,000 heads, ranking third in the country. In the past 10 years, rabies has killed 31 people, and more than 85,000 people have had to be treated for rabies prevention. In the last months of 2023 and early 2024 alone, there were 4 rabies outbreaks in the whole province, killing 2 people and exposing 86 people.

In 2023, functional agencies handled and administratively sanctioned 28 cases of violations in vaccination against rabies, including administrative sanctions against dog owners who intentionally did not have their dogs vaccinated or let dogs roam free without muzzles.

Identifying the importance of rabies prevention and control in protecting people's health, in recent years, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has promptly advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue guiding documents and concentrate resources to drastically and synchronously implement rabies prevention and control measures.

Therefore, in recent years, vaccination against rabies in dogs and cats has always achieved quite high results. The whole province has implemented vaccination, with 284,000 doses in the first phase of 2023 and over 255,000 doses in the second phase of 2023. Notably, the progress of the first rabies vaccination in 2024 for dogs and cats reaches nearly 176,000 doses, reaching more than 56% of the plan.

Mr. Dang Van Hiep, Director of Thanh Hoa Sub-Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, said: "In order to perform well the work of monitoring and detecting epidemics, the Department has assigned and directed the district and commune veterinary systems to allocate officials to strengthen epidemic surveillance in the area to detect epidemics early and take timely handling measures.

In addition, veterinary systems from the province, districts, and communes regularly and periodically coordinate to exchange the epidemic situation with the provincial, district, and commune health systems to grasp local information promptly and have timely measures to deal with unpredictable developments."

Rabies prevention and control are associated with the responsibility of the leader

According to the Thanh Hoa Sub-Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, rabies prevention and control in dogs still faces many difficulties due to the limited statistical work and management of house dog herds in the province according to regulations.

"The People's Committee at the commune and village level has not timely updated the total dog herd in the area; the communes only assigned the commune veterinarian and the village head to make statistics of the dog herd before vaccination without financial support and statistical methods, so the statistical number is not close to reality.

Managing dog herds raised in communes and villages is also not regular or updated. The main reason is that the Commune People's Committee assigns commune veterinarians, but the allowance for them is very low, so they are not enthusiastic about the task," said Mr. Dang Van Hiep.

Besides, vaccination against rabies for dogs and cats in some mountainous districts and some communes in difficult areas has not been organized thoroughly. The main reason is that, due to living habits and mountainous terrain, capturing dogs for vaccination is very difficult. The work of handling and punishing free-roaming dogs also faces many difficulties.

To successfully carry out the task of "Peak year of rabies vaccination for dogs and cats in the area," the Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee issued an official telegram focusing on strictly implementing rabies prevention and control in Thanh Hoa province.

Accordingly, the Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee requested that the Chairman of the People's Committees of districts, towns, and cities direct the People's Committees of communes, wards, towns, and relevant departments and units to strictly implement rabies prevention and control measures; strengthen the direction, inspection, urging, and implementation of measures to prevent and control rabies in humans and animals.

The official telegram emphasized: "The Head of People's Committees at all levels are fully responsible for directing the effective implementation of rabies prevention and control measures in the area; assigning forces to strengthen supervision to the village level to detect rabies in animals early, take timely measures to treat, prevent, and control the epidemic, fully report the epidemic situation, and implement epidemic prevention and control according to regulations.

Strengthen the strict handling of cases violating legal regulations on raising and managing dogs and cats; strengthen the application of sanctions to handle violations of regulations on dog raising and vaccination against rabies.

Investigate, prosecute, and resolutely handle cases of non-compliance with regulations on raising and managing dogs and cats, leading to serious consequences according to regulations.

Direct the review, clarify responsibilities, and strictly handle groups, individuals, and unit heads who are still subjective and negligent in leadership and direction of rabies prevention and control, especially units with low rates of vaccination against rabies for the total dog herd and places where people die from rabies due to poor disease prevention and control.

Establish a delegation to directly inspect and urge communes, wards, and towns with low rates of vaccination against rabies in dogs and cats.

According to the assessment of the specialized agency, one of the reasons for the failure to control rabies is that the review and statistics of the number of dogs and cats in some localities (mainly in midland and mountainous districts) are not accurate. The awareness of some people about the level of danger and the regulations on rabies prevention and control is still limited.