Thousands of dogs on death row

2006-08-04 08:22

Beijing - A second Chinese local government said it will launch a mass slaughter of dogs after 16 people died from rabies, state media reported on Friday.

Officials in the eastern city of Jining said on Thursday they would kill all dogs within five kilometres of villages where rabies was found, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The measure came in response to the deaths of 16 people from rabies in Jining in the last eight months, Xinhua said.

It didn't say how many animals would be killed, but said the city had about 500 000 dogs.

Most dogs not vaccinated

More than 2 000 people die of rabies each year in China. Only three percent of the country's dogs are vaccinated against the disease.

Rabies attacks the nervous system. In humans, it normally results in death within a week after symptoms develop.

Dogs beaten to death

The slaughter in Jining, in Shandong province, comes just days after Mouding county in southern China's Yunnan province killed 50 000 dogs over five days in a crackdown launched after three people died of rabies.

The dogs were beaten to death and only military guard dogs and police canine units were spared.

The campaign in Mouding county drew fire from legal scholars and animal rights activists, who criticised it as crude and cruel.

- AP