CHENNAI: As many as 241 rabies cases have been identified among stray dogs across Chennai since January this year, said officials in the veterinary section of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC). Of these, as many as 68 are dogs on which animal birth control (ABC) surgeries have been performed. They showed no symptom before the surgeries but died days later, and their postmortem reports confirmed rabies, a senior official told TNIE.
While activists called the numbers ‘highly alarming’,especially with the asymptomatic cases being a particular concern because the public may not be able to immediately identify rabid dogs, the number also calls into question the corporation’s mass vaccination drives, which it has taken up for many years now. The civic body has spent around Rs 3 crore each year for the last two years on vaccination.
The figure is nearly five times the annual average recorded at the Madras Veterinary College, the referral facility for rabies testing. It had shown 428 confirmed canine rabies cases in nine years between 2010 and 2019, which worked out to an average of about 48 a year. Even though detection has improved since, 241 cases in 10 months have set the alarm bells ringing.
The city corporation has systematically collected canine rabies data only this year with a special team to control rabies set up in January. There is no official data for previous years, sources said.
Officials told TNIE that in 2025, the stray dog population was 1,80,000 and 80% of the dogs were covered in the drive. In 2026, they said, with the population around 2,00,000, 87% were covered in the drive from August to November, at a cost of Rs 3.5 crore. The activists, meanwhile, say the actual stray dog population could be higher.
Shravan Krishnan, director of Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary said, “According to my estimate, there would be more than 5 lakh stray dogs in Chennai. In ABC centres such as Kannammapet or Pulianthope, dogs are also brought in for outpatient services. Rabid dogs must not be brought inside these centres.”
RA Kirthana, activist and founder of Hope for Critters, said even in cases of dumb rabies, dogs do show symptoms. Senior officials said dogs picked up for ABC surgeries are kept under observation for 12 hours and operated on if all parameters are normal. Male dogs are then observed for four days and females for six.
However, there is no reliable test to rule out rabies in a live dog, which can be confirmed only through postmortem testing of brain tissue. Officials said the 68 dogs were cases of dumb or asymptomatic rabies.
Officials said all necessary protocols are followed once a dog is identified with rabies, including ring vaccination within a two-and-a-half-kilometre radius of where the dog was picked up, besides drives in other locations. Spaces where the asymptomatic dogs were kept in ABC centres are sanitised, they added.