NEW DELHI: For the past three years, the stray dog menace has been on the rise in the country. The latest data shows that approximately six people face dog bites every minute in the country.
Moreover, India has also become the capital of rabies-related deaths – over 36 per cent of the world’s deaths due to rabies occur in India alone, as per the WHO Association for the Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI)-2004 study.
The number of dog bites per day has been increasing since 2021 and has almost doubled in the last three years. Parshottam Rupala, the Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying, informed the Parliament that there were 24.7 lakh reported dog bite incidents from different parts of the country between January and October 2023. The number of dog bite cases was over 17 lakh in 2021 and 21.8 lakh in 2022.
“There are some sporadic reports of dog attacks happening in various parts of the country,” said Rupala in response to the question from Pratima Mondal, a member of parliament. He further stated that the information made available by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (National Centre for Disease Control) shows a reduction in the number of dog attacks compared to the year 2018.
However, the number of dog bite cases was quite high in 2018. There were over whopping 75 lakh dog bite cases reported in 2018 which decreased to over 72 lakh and 46 lakh in subsequent years 2019 and 2020, respectively. Surprisingly, then after number of dog bite cases sharply declined by more than twice.
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying Jointly launched the National Action Plan for Dog Mediated Rabies Elimination in the year 2021.
In March, the Central Government notified the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The new rule was made after reviewing two decades-old rules on the direction of the Supreme Court.