Blue Cross of India - ABC - Animal Birth Control Program

In 1964, appalled by the horrific way the Corporation of Madras was killing street dogs, the Blue Cross of India began to study this issue. We were surprised to learn that the Madras Corporation - at 300 years one of the oldest municipalities in the world - started its catch-and-kill programme in 1860. Dogs regarding which complaints were received were often shot on the street and the complaints generally were about dogs which were biters and, therefore, suspected to be rabid. Section 218 of The Madras City Municipal Corporation Act of 1919 authorised catching and killing any dog on the street which did not have a licence tag. From about 100 dogs per year in 1860, the Corporation were killing over 16,000 in 1964.

The Blue Cross was convinced that if a procedure designed to control or eliminate street dogs had not showed positive results after implementing it for over a 100 years, something was wrong. It was also convinced that where a dog had to be killed because it was overly aggressive or suspected to be rabid, the killing must be done in a more humane manner.

It was in 1964 that the Blue Cross proposed that a more humane and viable solution to prevent the visible increase in the number of street dogs and the number of cases of human rabies was by a sustained catch-and-neuter programme coupled with vaccination against rabies. It decided to call the programme the Animal Birth Control programme or the ABC programme to show that the control of the street dog population was as easy as ABC.

As could be expected, the Madras Corporation’s response was to reject the proposal outright. The Blue Cross kept up the pressure on the Corporation and began to spay/neuter all street dogs rescued by it. After treatment, the dog would be spayed, vaccinated and released at the same spot from where it had been picked up. Owners were also encouraged to have their pets spayed and vaccinated free of charge. A few hundred operations were done each year but the number of street dogs showed no signs of coming down. After a few years, we realised that each area had its “holding capacity” for street dogs and this was determined by the availablity of food sources. In most cases, this source was a garbage dump and many of the dogs around these places were emaciated and many.

In most cases, this source was a garbage dump and many of the dogs around these places were emaciated and mangy. In the meantime, from an average of less than one dog per day in 1860, the number of dogs killed by the Corporation had gone up to 30,000 per year in 1995 and had increased to as high as 135 dogs per day in 1995.

In 1990, WSPA and WHO brought out their “Guidelines for Dog Population Management” followed by WSPA’s guidelines for “Stray Dog Control”. And this is what the report, authored by Dr. K. Bogel, Chief Veterinarian, Public Health Unit, WHO in Switzerland and John Hoyt, says: “All to often, authorities confronted with the problems caused by these dogs have turned to mass destruction in the hope of finding a quick solution, only to discover that the destruction had to continue, year after year with no end in sight”. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. The age-old method of catch-and-kill has not worked and never will.

It was in 1995 that the Blue Cross was finally able to get the Corporation of Madras to agree to try out ABC as an alternate to killing in a part of South Madras. We realised that a city-wide ABC programme would have been the ideal solution but the Corporation Commissioner, Mr. M. Abul Hassan, asked us to start the programme and then increase its scope. The only assurances he gave us was that he would personally monitor the programme and that no dog which had been spayed and vaccinated would be caught. Dogs in the area not covered by the ABC programme would continue to be caught and killed by electrocution. The total cost of the programme was to be met by the Blue Cross. Realising that funding the programme would be difficult for the Blue Cross on its own, we tried to get WSPA to fund it. Mr. John Joseph of WSPA came to Madras and held detailed discussions with us but finally decided to fund Help In Suffering (HIS) in Jaipur.

Chennai and Jaipur were the first cities to start sustained ABC-AR programmes. Within six months, results in the areas covered by the Blue Cross ABC programme were promising enough to prompt the Corporation to extend the programme to the whole of South Madras. By a stroke of luck, Mr. Abul Hassan became the Special Officer - equal to Mayor - of the Corporation. People for Animals agreed to take up ABC in North Madras and the Corporation converted its electrocution chamber to an ABC centre.

Several cities have taken up ABC but in many cases it has not been a sustained programme. In many places where the ABC programme was being implemented, local municipalities suddenly ordered the destruction of dogs on a massive scale in a knee-jerk reaction to complaints and the dogs destroyed were usually the ones that had been spayed and vaccinated at great expense and effort.

The purpose of the ABC programme is to bring down the number of street dogs in a humane manner and, more importantly, to bring down the number of cases of rabies. To see whether this has been a success, let us look at the cases of human rabies in three places where the ABC-AR programme has been implemented.

Chennai:	Number of cases of human rabies deaths reported in	1996	120
	ABC-AR city wide started in September	1996
	Human rabies deaths reported in	1997	107
		1998	44
		1999	24
		2000	17
		2001	35
		2002	16
Jaipur:	Number of cases of human deaths due to rabies in	1996	10
	ABC programme in walled city starts in March	1996
	Human rabies deaths reported in	1997	3
		1998	5
		1999	1
		2000	3
		2001	0
		2002	0
Rabies cases still reported from non-ABC areas outside the walled city.
Kalimpong:	Number of cases of human deaths due to rabies in	2000	10
	Intensive ABC/ARV starts in	2000
	Number of deaths in	2001	5
	Number of deaths in	2002	0
No rabies deaths for twenty one months upto June 18, 2003 for which figures are available.

We find a steady decrease in human rabies cases in those places where an ABC-AR programme is being carried out. In Jaipur, the cases of rabies from the walled city where HIS is carrying out the spay and vaccinate programme is zero for the third year running.

In Kalimpong where the programme has been carried out by an HIS associate, there has been no reported case for the last 21months. In the case of Kalimpong, the anti-rabies programme has been much more wide spread than the ABC programme.

While the above figures should be able to convince any body about the viability of the ABC programme, more clinching evidence is provided by the results of the WHO-sponsored multi-centric study of rabies in India for the period 1992 to 2002. The results were released in draft form in July 2003 and will be released by WHO in Bangkok later this year and will form part of WHOs report on world wide rabies studies in 2004. The findings were that the number of animal bites and human rabies cases in 2002 were 17.4 million and 17,371 respectively and, most relevant to us, almost constant over the ten year period. Yet, official statistics from cities where the ABC programme has been implemented clearly show the reductions in both bites and human rabies cases in these areas. The conclusion is clear: ABC is amazingly effective in achieving what was desired - a sharp and dramatic reduction in both cases of dog bites and human rabies cases.

In Chennai, Mr. M. P. Vijayakumar, IAS took over in May as the new Commissioner of the Corporation. On May 19, he held a public meeting to interact with the citizens of Chennai on ways to develop the city. Many problem areas were mentioned including water scarcity, pig menace, noise pollution by autorickshaws, improper garbage clearance and park maintenance, encroachments, unauthorised constructions and ineffective response from helpline services. No mention of dogs came up because there is no dog problem. This is further borne out by an article in The Hindu of June 10, 2003 about various steps of the road map to beautify Chennai. Again, no mention of any dog problem. Coupled with improved garbage clearance, the situation will improve in the days to come.

Most of you are professionals in the animal care field. As community leaders and dedicated professionals, we must realise that the world has changed beyond belief in the last century. Where new evidence compels us to re-evaluate our method of doing things, we must do so in a frank spirit of being willing to change if necessary. I had mentioned at the start that over a hundred years of catch-and-kill has not worked in either controlling the street dog population or the incidence of rabies - not in India nor anywhere else. These goals are achievable, however, if we work together to implement viable and bold new strategies and interventions that get results.

The WHO at its Fourth International Symposium on Rabies Control In Asia stated: “Elimination of rabies in humans requires control of rabies in dogs”. Dr. F. X. Meslin of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Department of WHO avers: “Rabies elimination by vaccination of the dog population is the most cost-beneficial strategy”. It has also been repeatedly stressed that once we reach the threshold figure of 70% of a dog population being vaccinated, the propagation of rabies is virtually halted. 70% is also the figure at which stage ABC reaches its “critical mass”. An aggressive ABC-AR not only will steeply reduce rabies, it will also reduce the number of street dogs. Combined with an effective garbage control system, results will be dramatically visible. A safe oral anti-rabies vaccine will certainly be available in the next few years and if an affordable safe chemo-sterilant becomes a reality, the situation will be breathtakingly simplified.

Figures courtesy - Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Figures courtesy - Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Figures courtesy Dr. Naveen Kumar Pandey, Darjeeling Animal Welfare Society on 05.07.2003