Tuesday, August 7, 2012

NYTimes Story on India's Rabid Dog Menace

According to a thorough and thoroughly scary story in today's New York Times, India suffers more than any other country from stray dogs and the rabies they carry:
 Free-roaming dogs number in the tens of millions and bite millions of people annually, including vast numbers of children. An estimated 20,000 people die every year from rabies infections — more than a third of the global rabies toll.
After a 2001 law was passed forbidding the killing of stray dogs, the dogs have multiplied and are a fanged public nuisance.
India’s place as the global center for rabid dogs is an ancient one: the first dog ever infected with rabies most likely was Indian, said Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Dog bites cause 99 percent of human rabies deaths
Is anyone doing anything?  I hope this story will help!

No comments: