More than 1000 dogs die in Thailand rabies panic
In the crowded conditions, diseases such as parvovirus and distemper have spread like wildlife.
No less than 1,400 dogs have died as a result of a public panic over a rabies outbreak in Thailand.
According to animal welfare charity Soi Dog, some three thousand dogs were rounded-up a couple of weeks ago in the Nakhon Phanom province and dumped in a government pound.
In the crowded conditions, diseases such as parvovirus and distemper have spread like wildlife. Starvation of small and sickly dogs and fights between dogs have also added to the death toll.
A rescue mission is now underway to save the remaining 1,500 or so dogs in the pound, together with many cats have also been rounded up by the Thai government’s livestock department.
“I would like to stay positive, but I can’t,” said one member of the Soi Dog emergency reaction team. “The pound is overcrowded and dog fights break out all the time. When it is feeding time, the weaker dogs don’t have the strength to eat. So the stronger dogs take all the food and the weaker ones don’t survive.
“The dogs are scared, depressed, and traumatised by their experience. It’s hard to stay positive about this place. It’s simply heartbreaking.”
The team were given permission to go into the pound, where they sorted the dogs into various groups. Small dogs, puppies and the weak were separated from the big dogs and, as none of the animals are sterilised, the males were separated from the females.
They then vaccinated every animal in the pound, at a rate of about 60 per hour, and marked them with green dye so that no animal would be vaccinated twice by accident.
Soi Dog stressed that while the animals may survive, they now face a life in captivity as officials have not kept a record of where they came from. Even if their territory could be traced, it is likely that it has now been overtaken by stronger, fitter dogs who have managed to avoid the round-up.
The panic over a “rabies outbreak” in Thailand began in the New Year and has resulted in public calls for all eight million street dogs in Thailand to be killed. In March, 20 dogs at a Buddhist temple in the south of the country were poisoned by government officials, sparking outrage amongst animal lovers.
Officials later claimed that the tests had shown 16 of the 20 dogs had rabies. But the results were never released, raising suspicion they were made up.
The Thai Livestock Department has since come under fire for not reassuring the public that there is no rabies outbreak and for its inept handling of captured dogs.
With Strangles Awareness Week just around the corner (5-11 May), vets are being encouraged to share a survey about the disease with their horse-owning clients.
