The 2008 Ladakh Programme Begins

Ladakh Street Dog Resting

The third annual Leh Street Dog Sterilisation project started on June 2nd. After the "challenge" of purchasing medicines and equipment in the labyrinthine Chandni Chowk, followed by the 3 day road trip from New Delhi to Leh over the 3rd highest motorable road in the world, we have joined volunteers from Australia, Poland and India to work together with local staff to sterilise and rabies vaccinate the dogs of Leh and surrounding villages.

It has been encouraging to note that many of the dogs we have seen have already been caught and sterilised in the previous years' programs. This year we have started vaccinating against rabies, following successful negotiations with the Ladakh Administration who will provide the vaccines. There are also plans for mobile clinics to service villages further afield.

There have been many welcomed improvements to the clinic site since the program finished last September such as tree planting, completion of perimeter fencing, and a brand spanking new toilet block! Work has started on a new clinic which will include a store room, preparation room and separate purpose built surgery room. The existing surgery will be used as an office- cum- treatment room.

A dog catching workshop will take place in mid June and we are looking forward to welcoming Dr Mark Johnson, an expert in wild animal capture from the US, to teach us new methods of catching the street dogs. The workshop will be attended by representatives from Help in Suffering, Jaipur, the SARAH program in Sikkim, the Welfare of Stray Dogs, Mumbai and the Snow Leopard Conservation Group, Leh. It will be a great opportunity for everyone to learn and share ideas.

Dr Ruth Pye

VBB & Bayer Animal Health Care Project

India Dog in the Street

Dogs are capable of transmitting a number of infectious diseases to humans, termed ‘zoonoses’. Rabies is by far the most serious, well-recognized and well-documented canine viral zoonosis in India with at least 30,000 human deaths reported each year. In developing countries such as India, uncontrolled populations of stray and semidomesticated dogs exist in close proximity to increasing densities of human populations in urban environments and humans often share a close relationship with semi-domesticated dogs in rural settings. In these communities the risks of disease transmission are high.

Bayer HealthCare Animal Health has launch a three year research project in India aimed at surveying mosquito and tick-transmitted infectious diseases in street dogs (canine vector-borne diseases) and zoonotic gastrointestinal parasites that can spread from animals to humans. The project will be conducted as a collaborative effort between Dr Rebecca Traub, Lecturer of Veterinary Public Health at the School of Veterinary Sciences, University of Queensland and Vets Beyond Borders. Dr Megat Abd Rani, who is undertaking her PhD associated with this project, will accompany Dr Traub to India for a 5 week period in June 2008 to commence fieldwork. Blood, faecal and lymph node aspirates will be collected from anesthetized dogs undergoing routine sterilization under the Vets Beyond Borders’ animal birth control programs in Sikkim and Ladakh. Street dogs will also be sampled in Delhi under the kind support of Dr Vinod Sharma and in Mumbai under joint collaborations with Dr Gatne, Bombay Veterinary College. These samples will be screened for important infectious diseases of dogs, such as canine heartworm and tropical canine pancytopaenia as well as for those parasites capable of infecting humans, such as canine hookworm, roundworm, the hydatid tapeworm, and intestinal protozoa such as Giardia. Obtaining such data in the past has often not only been limited by financial factors, logistics and available expertise, but also the lack of appropriate diagnostic tools that can provide comprehensive data on the nature of these infectious diseases. The development and use of appropriate molecular tools in the current project will overcome these problems. Upon completion, this project will provide a comprehensive report on the parasites and vector-borne diseases affecting stray and semi-domesticated dogs in India, along with practical, yet effective means of prevention and control.