The government of Karachi has asked for the support from the private sector on two different levels to curb the growing number of cases related to dog-bites in the city and plug “potentially fatal gaps” in the public sector healthcare system, it emerged on Friday.
As per the reports, the meetings took place in the last two days, from which one was chaired by the Chief Minister Retired Justice Maqbool Baqar and other by the Health Minister, Dr Saad Khalid Niaz a day earlier, shows the concern of the government and its persistent failure on addressing what has become a lingering mortal threat to citizens, forcing officials to seek assistance from the private sector.
The Chief Minister, during the meeting on Friday directed the local government to work together with Ayesha Chindrigar Foundation (ACF) to control the dog population and launching a public awareness campaign, with an aim at controlling the cruelty towards animals.
He further made directions to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to provide six vans to ACF to help in catching dogs and neuter them.
He also received a detailed note on the rabies control programme, which was launched over a year ago in the province but is still far behind from making an impact at the community level by the Secretary of the local government, Manzoor Shaikh.
The latter has further informed the meeting that the programme was started to avoid human deaths from rabies by reducing the incidence of rabies in dogs, a prime host of the deadly virus, via effective preventive and control measures.
He pointed out that, these measures, included establishment of 20 centres in as many districts of the province where vaccination of dogs would be carried out.
While adding that the department had also set up three anti-rabies centres in district South, Center and Malir, he said that, “Under the programme, 125,000 dogs in 20 districts would be vaccinated by June 2025. Three vaccination centres are working in East, Central and South districts where 1,072 dogs have been spayed, 5,436 neutered and 8,000 vaccinated.”
The chief minister also gave directives for activating the veterinary hospital located off M.A. Jinnah Road and for ensuring availability of anti-rabies vaccine at hospitals.
