SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- A county in southwestern China has killed as many as 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered campaign following the deaths of three local people from rabies, official media reported on Tuesday.

The five-day massacre in Yunnan province's Mouding county spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, the Shanghai Daily reported, citing local media.
Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and beaten to death on the spot, it said. Other killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then homing in on their prey.
About 360 of the county's 200,000 residents suffered dog bites this year, with three reported deaths, including a 4-year-old girl, the report said.
"With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill the dogs," Li Haibo, a spokesman for the county government was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Calls to county government offices rang unanswered on Tuesday.
China has suffered a major rise in the number of rabies cases in recent years, with 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which data was available, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts have tied the rise in cases in part to a major increase in dog ownership, particularly in rural areas where about 70 percent of households keep dogs. However, rates of rabies vaccination remain extremely low at only about 3 percent, according to the center.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html

What the heck man. I understand the need to control rabies but how about enforced vaccinations?

Just like China. Hope they don't have an outbreak of TB. They'll slaughter a whole province at this rate.

I wonder what they would do if they had an outbreak of sanity - kill all doctors and medical people?????

MarinerRhodes

I would guess thats cost issue. When you have a population of over 1 Billion, vaccinating everyone because quite expensive. Much cheaper to kill the dogs. However Rabies can only be transmitted via a bite or scratch. Therefore its only necessary to cull those that are infected, You dont need to kill 50,000.

Wait wait wait...3 people=30,000 dogs...damn! thats some crazy ratios there...

Originally Posted by mmarsh

MarinerRhodes

I would guess thats cost issue. When you have a population of over 1 Billion, vaccinating everyone because quite expensive. Much cheaper to kill the dogs. However Rabies can only be transmitted via a bite or scratch. Therefore its only necessary to cull those that are infected, You dont need to kill 50,000.

Right, but it wasn't the entire country. It was one county. The population of the county was 200,000.

I just thought it would be a point of interest to those that are unaware of the high handedness some countries take with their citizens.

It is certainly more cost effective to kill the dogs rather than vaccinate them, esepcially if they cremate them. But I still do not agree with it.

Communist Chinese, they love to use power whenever possible.

Could be a nice way of them saying, "look folks, we kill 50,000 dogs just for a couple of dog bites. Think what we can do if you ever try to overthrow the Communist Party."

FYI... Rabies can also be contracted through breathing in the dust kicked up from the dried droppings of an infected animal.

In China, you simply have to understand that there is no such thing as "animal rights", they don't even have human rights as we think of them in the west so why is this a surprise.

Also there is no such thing as enforced laws. Law enforcement here is very much an entrepenurial endeavour.

After I read three persons were dead due to dog bites, so that 50,000 dogs must be disposed of, all I can say is what a ****ing powerful communist authority !

dogs = good eating in many Asian countries including China, Korea, and Vietnam.