365NEWS gathered that VETERINARY doctors, under the auspices of Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association, NVMA, weekend, expressed concern over the rate of dog attacks and deaths among Nigerians.
Speaking with Vanguard, former National President, NVMA, Dr Gani Enahoro, said it had become a major public health issue as dogs were suppose to be responsibly kept by their owners and not allowed to stray and become threats to human health.
Enahoro also noted the existence of dog laws the government needed to dust up and enforce stringently in order to safeguard the lives of Nigerians.
However, he said awareness was ongoing on the danger of rabies in dogs, and how to go about it, noting that September 28 had been declared every year as World Rabies Day for which veterinarians and public health practitioners, human medics, who are into public health, collaborate and do a lot of sensitization about rabies.
He said: “Pet ownership confers a lot of responsibility on those who choose to own them. We have a lot of carelessness, apology to this irresponsible ownership of pets in so many quarters in this country.
“We have dog laws that were enacted as far back as the colonial era, which have not been dusted up and thoroughly enforced or reviewed, even as of now.
‘’I know the recent amendment to the Animal Disease Control Act has taken some considerations around all of the laws of the past that have to do with animals, and some specific states such as Delta, are even beginning to create their own dog laws now, and I think we should take a cue from that.
“Delta State has a bill in the State Assembly that is trying to refine the dog law so that it reflects the modernity of today, with respect to how we keep animals. Animals, like dogs, have significant public health roles because of their interaction and closeness with human beings.
“Now, we have heard some stories of people whose death were traced to dogs attacking them beyond their confinements. Dogs are supposed to be provided with good housing, feeding, watering points, without any possible breaking out of their confinement to attacking human beings that is responsible ownership but we don’t have this in most places.
‘’Even the police are not always very eager to recall these laws and use it to prosecute offenders because when your dogs go out of your control and attack an outsider, it is an offence, which should subject the owner to litigation but I am not sure the police are enforcing most of these things today.
“So, we need to tinker with those laws and bring them to the realities of today in the way we live with the security implications of keeping our dogs.
“We all need to have security enhancement but then where your own authority and rights end is the beginning of the rights of another person, which all have to be balanced out in the kind of laws that we operate today. So there are challenges with respect to that.
“Dogs don’t only bite innocently, there could be a reason for attacking human beings, and then we have diseases like rabies, for which we have seen dog-mediated or dog-related rabies in man have been documented very recently in some parts of the country, and people have died from it.”
“Sometimes, those people don’t even trace back enough to know that their death was a result of the bite they had from stray dogs or dogs that got loose from their compounds. So, there are public health implications for which laws must be enforced to catch up with the carelessness of some owners today.”
How, he (Enahoro), counselled that victims of dog bites to approach medical doctors, adding that the doctors should work in synergy with veterinarians to effectively treat them.
While adding that pet owners, especially, dogs, should take them for anti-rabies vaccine, Dr Enahoro said: “This has been the subject of recent discussion because we also know that human medical colleagues, need a lot of awareness, with respect to the kind of immediate actions and activities around dog bites.
‘’Many times, they have referred those patients to the veterinarians for use of anti-rabies or to ask for availability of anti-rabies.
“The anti-rabies vaccination for animals is not the post-exposure immunization that humans need, and they are not the same, there are gaps here, and this is where one health is taking a leading role now, where veterinary health, veterinary education, veterinary medical education and human medical education are having a convergence now.
“Now, the first thing we all need to know is that the anti-rabies vaccination for dogs is almost 90 per cent trusted. In otherwords, if a dog is vaccinated against rabies, we are almost 90 per cent sure that that dog will not have rabies.
“Again, of course, who is doing the vaccination? If it is a trained veterinarian who worries about the cold-chain and who knows how to maintain the activities around his profession, then you can have that rest of mind, not when quacks are involved or when people self-medicate their animals at home.
“So, when there is a dog bite, the first thing that should be done, of course, is for the patient or the person to approach the human medical center and report, and the doctor attending to the patient should liaise with the veterinarian.
“To know if such a dog had a history, if it was a stray dog, too bad, because it would be difficult to have a record for a stray dog but if it is from a dog that was known, then it is compulsory that the records of such dogs should be presented by the veterinarian to know if the dog was vaccinated or not pre-biting.
‘’So it takes a lot of working together in synergy when there is a dog bite, for the medical doctor to work with the veterinarian to know the kind of management approach to give to the patient.’’
