The Agriculture Department under the Kathmandu Metropolitan City has decided to sterilise over 10,000 street dogs within the ongoing fiscal year.

The sterilisation drive is part of the city’s efforts to control the growing street dog population and reduce the risk of dog bites and rabies, a deadly but preventable disease that continues to kill people in the city and across the country.

The city has allocated a budget of Rs10 million for the sterilisation, vaccination, and management of its estimated 19,000 street dogs.

“Nearly 90 percent of street dogs have already been vaccinated, and less than 50 percent are sterilised,” said Nurnidhi Neupane, information officer at the city office. “We aim to sterilise 10,000 street dogs this year, and the remaining will be sterilised in the coming years.”

Managing street dogs has become a major challenge for the city office. Due to proximity to several other local units in the Kathmandu Valley, street dogs keep entering the city from surrounding areas, making management difficult. Besides the dogs on the streets, officials at the department estimate that around 20,000 dogs are kept as pets in households across the metropolis, and many are released onto the streets when the owners grow tired of them or when the animals become old or sick.

“Due to a lack of proper coordination between local units, we have not been able to reduce the number of dogs in Kathmandu streets,” said Neupane. “We can manage street dogs properly only when other local units also take steps.”

Besides sterilisation, the metropolis plans to expand shelters for stray dogs. The department has already built a shelter at its garbage transfer station in Teku for around 40 stray dogs.

The city office's plan to microchip all pet dogs failed, as only a few owners responded to officials. Officials had hoped that microchipping would help owners locate their animals when they get lost. The measure also aims to hold owners accountable if they abandon their pets. Pet microchips are tiny devices that are inserted under a dog’s skin. Officials said that the chip can be scanned and information about the owner stored in the chip can be accessed easily.

The lack of microchipping and abandoned pets adds to the problem, as 350 to 400 people are bitten by dogs in the Kathmandu Valley every day. The rising number of dog bites is a cause for concern as Nepal aims to eliminate dog-transmitted rabies by 2030.

Rabies is a deadly viral disease transmitted through the saliva of infected animals, especially dogs and jackals. Dog bites are responsible for almost all rabies deaths in Nepal. Doctors say if an anti-rabies vaccine is administered on time, rabies is 100 percent preventable, but once symptoms appear, the disease is always fatal.

However, the Health Ministry’s data show that dogbite cases have been rising every year and this makes

It is estimated that over 100 people die from rabies every year throughout the country. However, the Ministry of Health and Population has records showing only around two dozen deaths on average.

Doctors say not all dog bite incidents appear on record or all victims seek treatment, which makes it difficult to prevent rabies deaths and achieve the 2030 rabies elimination target set by the World Health Organisation.

Another hindrance to preventing deaths is the lack of awareness, and the limited availability of dogbite treatment, which is mostly limited to major cities, experts say.

Of the total animal bite victims, especially dog bite victims, 40 percent are children under 15 years old. Due to the fear of getting scolded by parents or the fear of injections, children often do not inform their parents about such incidents, according to doctors. Also, due to a lack of awareness about the risks, parents also do not take dog bites seriously and seek vaccination. Some people also think that anti-rabies vaccination is not required if the dog is a pet.

Rabies, according to the World Health Organisation, causes 59,000 agonising and painful deaths globally every year, one person every nine minutes, mostly children and the poor. The disease, while fatal, is 100 percent preventable if there is access to vaccines and life-saving treatment in the event of dog bites.