Bhubaneswar: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to send the blood samples of the stray dogs, which have received anti-rabies vaccine, to Veterinary College, Bengaluru, for sero surveillance to find out the quality of antibodies in them.The mass vaccination of dogs started from March 30. Till Sunday, 4,855 dogs have been vaccinated. Earlier, another 5,000 dogs have been vaccinated in the city, largely those that underwent sterilisation under the animal birth control (ABC) programme of the BMC in the past eight years.It has been scientifically proven that the antibodies against rabies are created in dogs after 21 days of receiving the vaccine. Debi Prasad Kund, who is in charge of the ABC programme, said they will send some samples of the vaccinated dogs to the Bengaluru institute as the antibody test outcome is better there. The quality of antibodies is a marker that the vaccination is bearing fruits, he added.In another finding of the drive, the BMC officials came to know that at least one-third of the street dogs were friendly with the civic body teams, who did not need nets to catch them. “Say, out of 100 dogs in a day, 30-35 were caught simply with hands. There are expert handlers, who catch them and administer the vaccine and leave them after marking their ears so that the vaccinated ones are identified,” Kund said.He added each vaccinated dog is being tagged using non-toxic biological marker so that they are easily recognisable. The tagging will help check repetitive catch. “We will complete the drive in 90 days to help achieve a rabies-free city,” he said.The BMC had signed a tripartite agreement in Jan with College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Worldwide Veterinary Service, and Mission Rabies India for the vaccination of nearly 40,000 stray dogs in the city.The BMC said the vaccination drive will also cover at least 5,000 more puppies that were born after last Oct’s dog census. The puppies born in Nov and Dec have now crossed three months of age, making them eligible for vaccination, and were not included in the census count of 47,000.“Out of the total dog population of 52,000 (including the puppies), 40,000 are targeted to be vaccinated because the global standard is vaccination of 70-75% of the total population,” Kund said.
