The menace of stray dogs has increased in Rajshahi city. No action is being taken by the concerned authorities of Rajshahi City Corporation to control the spread of breeding and increase of stray dogs. RCC authorities said they couldn’t control the spread of stray dogs because there were no vaccines available to control the birth of those dogs.
It is learnt that killing of stray dogs has been stopped by Rajshahi City Corporation for couple of years because Animal Rights Activists across the country were against killing stray dogs by beating or by poisoning. Rights groups have also termed such killing of stray dogs as cruel and brutal that is why stray dogs have increased rapidly in the city. Often stray dogs are seen standing beside the roads and attacking the people while they try to pass through the roads. They even also attack in packs the passengers seating on rickshaws or on the auto-rickshaws.
City people were facing huge problems because of these stray dogs. They couldn’t even walk on some city roads freely. Mostly they face the problem at night. If these dogs bite someone, one needs to take the vaccine as treatment. But the vaccines needed to inject the dog-bite patient are very expensive. The prices of four vaccines which are required to be pushed after dog-bite are not less than taka 2,400 to 2,500 which is not easy to buy for common people.
A source of RCC informed, the number of stray dogs has increased to 4 to 5 times than those of last year.
Shaikh Mohammad Mamun Dollar, Conservation Officer of RCC informed, the government does not allow killing or eliminating stray dogs by beating or poisoning rather allow to control the birth of stray dogs through administering those birth control vaccines or sterilizing those dogs. But, there was no supply of feline birth control vaccines at RCC at present.
Sources further informed that the number of dog-bite patients were increasing at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital nowadays. Specially, after the winter is over, the city markets remained open till midnight and people who were returning to their houses late at night were being attacked by stray dogs. RMCH emergency sources informed, the number of dog bitten patients have been increased to 10 to 20 daily as against 10 to 15 earlier.
Poly Khatun (14), a resident of Tikapara area of the city informed at the Emergency of RMCH that she had been walking in her garden when a pack of dogs attacked and bit her. As a result she was taking a vaccine at the emergency department. But, there was no official supply of vaccine at the hospital. As a result, she was being forced to purchase the vaccine and the needle from an outside drug store. It was costing her taka 600 per vaccine to purchase and she is required to take four more vaccines. She demanded to eliminate stray dogs from the city as soon as possible