Dog-beating storm

The government did something bad with good intentions?

This paper decree is entirely "for the safety of the broad masses of the people" and its practice is entirely based on the above-mentioned documents.

Before the protest in the square on March 6, Wanzhou government always thought that its administrative order was completely "for the safety of people's lives", which was completely legal and reasonable, just like the practice of many brother cities.

Even for the safety of the masses, is it necessary to slaughter dogs on such a large scale? In this regard, Liu Yong, head of Wanzhou Propaganda Department, said that in this case, the government should take human life as the highest interest and must eliminate any possibility of infection.

"However, we really didn't expect such a fierce rebound." Xie, a public health expert who is now the head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Wanzhou District Government and the deputy director of the Health Bureau, took out the document "Chongqing Municipal People's Government DecreeNo. 107" and said, "Our approach is entirely based on the above documents." The Measures for the Prevention and Control of Rabies in Chongqing, which was deliberated and adopted in 2000 and came into effect in 20001year, strictly stipulates that three kilometers around rabies cases are epidemic areas, and 10 to 20 kilometers around epidemic areas are epidemic areas. It is forbidden to raise dogs without permission in epidemic areas, otherwise they will be killed by local public security organs or government organizations, and the dog owners will be fined 1000 yuan.

He said that in fact, the district government also has the difficulties of the district government. In order to be consistent with the government order issued by Chongqing, the notice has to be written in this way, but when it is implemented, the district government will try its best to take into account the feelings of ordinary people.

In fact, the central government is gradually exploring correct and effective solutions. On March 10, Yin, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that the Ministry of Agriculture has officially launched a major animal disease prevention and control operation, and the disease prevention and control has changed from passive emergency after the outbreak to improving the plan and taking the initiative to prevent and control; Change from phased work arrangement to standardization, legalization and institutionalization.

Why is there such a big difference between the implementation methods of local governments and the instructions of the central government? Lu Di, president of the China Small Animal Protection Association, said that when there is no epidemic, local governments are managed by multiple departments. Once there is an epidemic, there is no departmental management. In addition, due to the lack of laws related to animal protection, local governments will habitually adopt simple large-scale killing strategies.

With the rise of pet ownership in China in recent years, the number of dogs has almost exploded. According to media reports, the number of livestock has exceeded 654.38 billion. According to the data of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, only 3% of dogs have been vaccinated against rabies.

In this context, the Ministry of Health has long noticed the rising trend of rabies in China. The epidemic situation of infectious diseases announced in February this year showed that the number of rabies cases increased sharply from 196 to 159 in 2006, and the absolute number increased by 742 cases from 2005 to 2006, with an increase of 28.48% in the same period. The Ministry of Health has repeatedly declared that "the situation of rabies epidemic is very serious", but local governments have enough independent space for rabies prevention and control.

In addition to the large-scale outbreak of rabies, generally speaking, the usual preventive measures in many countries in the world are to vaccinate dogs on a large scale. According to the data of the World Health Organization, in 2004, at least 18 developing countries in the world took large-scale actions to kill stray dogs because of rabies, but they still failed to stop the outbreak of epidemic rabies. The World Health Organization has issued a document in this regard, pointing out that dogs can be replenished quickly, and beating dogs regularly will not help reduce stray dogs and prevent rabies. Vaccinating dogs on a large scale is the only effective measure to stop and relieve rabies.

The World Animal Protection Association, the international standard for scientific management of dogs, also said that although the mass destruction temporarily reduced the number of dogs, the low-density local environment would attract dogs from surrounding areas to replenish to the local area quickly, which once again increased the risk of disease transmission and hardly helped to solve the problem.

In fact, the habitual action of mass killing is no stranger. In the early days of the founding of New China, under the slogan of "breaking the four old habits and eliminating the four evils", the whole people went into the mountains to catch birds and remove sparrows. In the 1980s, a nationwide dog-beating campaign began. Since 2006, the policy of beating dogs in various places is only a footnote to solve the public health crisis with sports. However, some things have changed, which makes the indiscriminate sports mobilization policy no longer effective.