Odisha reports over 5.20 lakh dog bite cases in 22 months

Bhubaneswar, Dec 4: In Odisha, a staggering 520,237 dog bite incidents have been reported from January 2023 to October 2024, as revealed by Gokula Nanda Mallik, the Minister of Fisheries and Animal Resources, during an Assembly session on Wednesday. This averages out to approximately 777 dog bites each day.

Responding to a question posed by Congress MLA Kadraka Appala Swamy from Rayagada, Mallik detailed the statistics, noting that 259,107 cases occurred in 2023, while 243,565 were recorded in the first ten months of 2024. He highlighted that January to March 2024 saw the highest monthly totals, with 33,547, 32,561, and 29,801 cases, respectively.

According to the 2019 Livestock Census, Odisha has the second largest population of stray dogs in India, totaling about 1.734 million. To tackle this issue, around 4,605 stray dogs have been sterilized in eight urban regions under the Animal Birth Control program during 2022-2023. The government is also actively working towards achieving a rabies-free status for the state by 2030. Previous years saw 64,642 dog bites in 2022 and 59,085 in 2021.