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Increase in pets leads to more rabies

China Daily, July 9, 2012

• As China becomes a home to more and more pets and stray dogs, it is finding it ever more difficult to prevent and control the spread of rabies, officials said.

  

  In Beijing, the risk that dogs are carrying the disease has increased as a result of the city's failure to ensure all of them are vaccinated, said Wei Haitao, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture's animal husbandry and veterinary station.

  As a result, people are at a greater risk of being infected with the virus, which attacks the nervous system and can be transmitted through animals' saliva.

  About a million dogs are now registered in the city and have received annual vaccinations meant to prevent and control epidemics, according to Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

  "Meanwhile, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of dogs are now not being counted in the city's registration system," Wei said. "Many of them are strays in the suburbs."

  He made the remark on Thursday at a work conference in the capital.

  2010 saw nine cases of rabies virus in humans reported in Beijing. That was the disease's most prevalent year in the city since 1990, according to the animal husbandry and veterinary station.

  "We (government officials) are now under great pressure to prevent and control the spread of rabies virus since there already have been five cases of the virus being found in humans in the city in the first half of this year," he said.

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