KATHMANDU, MAY 14
Recently, a sudden scream from a child drew my attention. She was under attack by some stray dogs at New Road just next to my office building. Before I reached there to ward off the dogs, she had already been injured and was bleeding.
A month ago one of my neighbour's sons was also badly injured after being bitten by some stray dogs while returning home from school at Kaushaltar.
Still another mass attack by dogs at Thapa Gaun, Baneshwor led to a terrible bike accident.
Kathmandu's streets are growing insecure due to the increasing number of street dogs that roam around in groups.
You can be attacked any time while taking a walk, especially early in the morning or late in the evening. Children, the elderly, bike riders, pedestrians, street vendors and waste collectors are especially prone to dog attacks.
Even though the number of street dogs and their attacks are proliferating day by day, the issue is neither taken up seriously nor are any effective measures applied for their management.
Why is the concerned authority indifferent when it comes to addressing this issue so essential for a safe and peaceful life in the city? Even though the Agriculture and Livestock Department of Kathmandu Metropolitan City claims that they are working to manage the stray dogs in the capital, the number of patients visiting the Shukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital at Teku for anti-rabies vaccines tell a different story.
According to data provided by Teku Hospital, as many as 170 patients visit the health facility for anti-rabies vaccine every day. This does not include those patients who visit private hospitals and clinics, which are said to number even more, whereas more than 100 people die of rabies every year across the country.
The number of people seeking anti-rabies vaccines in state-run health facilities in fiscal year 2019-20 across the country was 35,250 whereas the number jumped to 56,619 in 2020-21. Due to a lack of awareness of its consequence, many of the victims even don't go to a hospital for treatment as the injury caused by the bite can be small and look normal. The Animal Welfare Group estimates that there are more than 100,000 street dogs now in Kathmandu alone, from around 80,000 last year.
Despite the proliferation in the population of stray dogs, the concerned authority has not been able to come up with policies, plans and measures to tackle the issue effectively.
If immediate effective measures aren't taken to control the escalating number of stray dogs and their menace in the streets of Kathmandu, things could go out of hand very soon, disturbing the peace and beauty of this capital city and forcing the city's dwellers to live in terror.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 15, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.