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| Rabies assumes alarming rate in Jammu | | Shortage of anti-rabies vaccine in GMC, JMC incapable to check dog population | | Subash Singh
Jammu / July 24, 2006
Rabies, one of the fatal communicable diseases which a man receives from the animal, is spreading fast in Jammu city at an alarming rate. It is the incapability of the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) that it could not prevent this disease and consequently number of stray dogs in the streets of Jammu city is increasing. And number of rabies victims is increasing in the city with each passing day.
No doubt, many committees have been constituted to combat this disease but, situation remained as it is .The committees like Association for Prevention & Control of Rabies (APCRI) and other NGO’s are working towards it but their efforts are meager as compared to the magnitude of this disease. According to sources, every year more than 20,000 people die in India due to this disease. In accordance with the census of 1982, the dog population was 18.8 millions. In 1987, it increased to 19.7million and now it is assessed that it has reached to 25 million and the most astonishing fact is that almost all the dogs are unprotected from rabies. The interesting thing is that almost 2\3rd of the victims are males and out of them 40 percent are children less than 14 years of age. The 99 percent of the total human rabies death occurs in the developing nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China. No doubt, these developing nations have effective and economical control measures but, their implementation lacks due to the economic and social reason. Another thing which is required is complete awareness among the masses. Monetary condition of the poor people is also one of the reasons for the increasing number of Rabies death.
Although, the anti-rabies vaccines are absolutely free in Government Medical College Jammu, but the truth is something else, GMC doctors deny having sufficient stock of vaccines. On the other hand, Medical Authorities claim that they have sufficient stock of anti rabies vaccination. But at this time, the average number of rabies victims approaching GMC Jammu is more than ten which is causing shortage.
When ‘Early Times’ contacted Commissioner, Jammu Municipal Corporation, Er.Vinod Sharma about the statement given by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad that the population of street dogs in Jammu is at peak and rabies can be controlled if the population of street dogs would reduce. He replied that JMC has made a medical committee against the increasing number of rabies cases in city and Dr. Bharti is leading the committee along with her squad. They have been assigned with the job to catch the dogs and administer them anti- rabies vaccine and this committee is working very hard to resolve this problem. When asked about the large number of dogs in street, he replied that we can neither catch all the dogs nor we can keep them because we are totally helpless but, one thing we can do is that we catch them and sterilize them in order to control the population of dogs in city.
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