daniel chigunwe
UNTIL the Ministry of Health and Child Care started compiling statistics of how many people are bitten by dogs, very few knew just how serious the problem of uncontrolled and wandering dogs was in Zimbabwe.
By the fourth week of November, with five weeks still to go before year end, 35 820 dog bites had been reported in Zimbabwe. The total number of dog bites must be considerably higher as the figure is for those where someone sought treatment from a clinic, doctor or hospital. Those who did not bother and just washed the wound at home are not in the total.
The Ministry figures are bad enough in any case, an average of well over 500 a week or almost 80 a day.
In the breakdown of the 610 bites in the week to November 24, just under a quarter, 149, were from dogs that proved on investigation to be vaccinated against rabies.
Almost as many, 135, came from dogs that were definitely not vaccinated against rabies. Most worrying, in about half the bites no one could find out if the dog was vaccinated or not. Rabies is an invariably fatal disease once the symptoms appear.
The only defence is to be vaccinated promptly after a bite by a rabid animal, or one suspected of being rabid.
If the dog that bit you cannot be found or identified, and so checked out, there are obviously some difficult decisions to make, based purely on likely probabilities considering the area and its recent history concerning rabies. The huge total of dog bites, and the follow up by the Health Ministry, shows that there are a number of laws and local authority by-laws being broken on a very large scale.
For a start all dogs in Zimbabwe are supposed to be vaccinated at three-year intervals. Perhaps we have never reached 100 percent, but at times in the past we have come close, and it is generally accepted that at least 70 percent of dogs must be vaccinated to break the chains of infection.
Rabies can never be totally eliminated in Zimbabwe, since jackals and some other wild animals can be infected and they in turn bite the first dog in a chain of infection.
But with more than 70 percent of dogs effectively vaccinated, that chain of infection will be very short, or perhaps not even able to start.
The dog bite statistics, looking just at the percentage of dogs whose vaccination status could be ascertained, show that only about half of Zimbabwean dogs are vaccinated, and that is a dangerously low fraction.
So for a start, we need to start checking up on dogs and making sure that the law is followed and that all are vaccinated. It is not expensive and often the Department of Veterinary Services makes sure it is free. While people who climb over a wall or fence or cut through a hedge to gain admission to a property where there is a dog cannot complain if the dog bites them, such legal bites are in a small minority.
Many people keep dogs precisely to deter criminals and since many criminals are either deterred or equipped with poison or weapons to take action to immobilise a dog, few are bitten.
Most people are bitten while going about their lawful business, walking in the streets or on open public land and should be able to do this without worrying that some stray dog will attack them, or some dog will shoot out of an open gate and attack them for walking past its owner’s house.
Some of these attacks produce severe injuries and wounds, and in the past there have even been people killed by dogs, innocent people who were attacked as they walked past a fence or a gate quite legally and lawfully.
This year there have been no deaths, but with 26 000 bites that is simply good luck, not something that could have been expected. People are not allowed to let their dogs wander. The law in almost all local authorities is fairly firm on this.
Dogs in urban areas must be confined to the premises of their owners, meaning they cannot get into the street or over a boundary into a neighbour’s property, unless they are under the control of a responsible person, generally meaning being on a lead or being so well trained that they will instantly obey a command to return to the controlling human.
Even rural dogs are not allowed to roam at will and need to be kept on the owner’s farm or other premises or be under control. They cannot attack schoolchildren passing a village for example.
While by-laws exist, and have for decades, enforcement, especially in recent years, has been very slack. Roaming dogs are not reported and gates left open with a dog sitting by them have become all too common, as owners cannot be bothered to stop and get out of their car once they have driven through. All this needs to be reported and then effective action taken.
Sometimes the grossly underfunded SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) will round up a bunch of stray dogs, but there are limits and thus local authorities need to attack the menace from the other direction, of fining owners of wandering dogs and those with dogs who leave gates open or walls and fences unrepaired.
That fine money could even be assigned to more effective action, such as catching and holding stray dogs.
Harare City Council has made promises that it will be enforcing its dog licencing and other dog-orientated by-laws, including limits on how many dogs a household can keep and the need to keep dogs confined on plots or under control.
We hope arrangements have been made to make the tens of thousands of licence discs in time and have these at all area offices in time, and that inspectors will be going around to ensure the dogs do have collars, again legally required, and that the licence discs are displayed on the collar. The licence money is supposed to cover this enforcement. This is the start of eliminating dog bites, except of criminals climbing clandestinely into private premises.
It also means every dog owner can be identified through the licence disc and so can be fined for breaches of the by-laws, or can be sued in civil courts for damage or injury inflicted by their dog. And perhaps those bitten by stray dogs will be able in future to sue the dog’s owners for medical costs and damages.
mbulelo smpofu
