Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) figures showed that the dog menace has been on the rise in the city. According to the civic data, a total of 1,09,563 dog bite cases were reported in the city from March 2017 to February 2018. It comes to an average of one dog bite every 12 hours.
Incidentally, this is the highest number of dog bites in last three years. It has also shown a rise by nearly 20 per cent as compared to last year. In the year 2016-17, 82,546 dog bite cases were reported in the city, whereas the year 2015-16 registered 80,934 cases.
Despite the BMC taking several measures to sterilise stray dogs in the city, cases of dog bites have shown no signs of decrease. The dog bites are determined by the number of patients, who are given free of cost anti-rabies vaccination at various civic hospitals.
A senior civic official said, “Dog bites are decided according to the number of ARVs given. However, these vaccines are given even to cure cat, rat or monkey bites. As a pre-cautionary measure, people tend to take ARV even when there are scratches caused by animals.”
According to civic officials, dog bite cases are found more among children and rag pickers. “Not only stray dogs, but even pet dogs are involved in bite cases,” said the official.
