DHARMAPURI: With increasing dog bite cases and two alleged rabies deaths reported across the district, residents have urged the municipality and town panchayats to establish Animal Birth Control (ABC) units.
As no Animal Birth Control has been undertaken in Dharmapuri, the stray dog population has drastically increased in the last two months. With the rising population, the number of dog bite cases has also increased, with 852 cases reported in Pennagaram, Palacode, Harur, and Pappireddipatti government hospitals in January and February. The dog bites have also resulted in two deaths caused by rabies in Dharmapuri Medical College Hospital, with several dozen cases reported.
S Selvakumar, from Dharmapuri, told TNIE, “It is challenging to manage dogs within he the municipality limits. They have taken over the streets without any means to control the dog population. While my street has about 10 people living here, we have about a dozen dogs.
They are extremely aggressive and contacting the municipality has been useless. We have repeatedly requested the municipality to at least conduct an ABC, but they said they do not have the facility to do it. With summer approaching, dog bite cases are just going to rise.”
D Durai from Pennagaram said, “There are many stray dogs in our locality, and no one feeds them. So, they are hungry and aggressive. Elderly people are mostly affected, and they often walk with a stick now. Recently, a 70-year-old woman from our locality was also bitten by a dog while returning from a shop. Moreover, their numbers are increasing every six months, and having no control measures would lead to an increase in dog bite cases.”
According to data from the Dharmapuri administration, In 2023, a total of 4,375 dog bite cases were treated in four government hospitals. In 2024, 4,726 cases were treated. However, this year, in just two months 852 cases were treated.
Though officials from the Dharmapuri Medical College hospital refused to provide data on treated dog bite cases, two people had allegedly died of rabies.
When asked about ABC centres, municipal officials said, “We are constructing an ABC centre in Sandhaipettai and it will be operational soon. We cannot conduct ABC in any location as we will have to provide pre and post-operative care to the sterilised dogs following Animal Welfare Board guidelines.”
Meanwhile, the additional director of the town panchayat was not reachable for comment.