TAIL-BORNE EVIL
Gallina Sheikina
Two Moscow districts have already been through rabies-induced quarantine. Diseased dogs had arrived in the residential zone because of tender-hearted citizens who had made up their minds to take care of stray dogs.
In Northern Butovo, the owner of a home animal shelter picked up a mongrel dog in the neighboring forest park and brought it to her apartment. As in many other locations outside the Moscow Circular Motor Road (MCMR), Northern Butovo has no clear-cut boundaries with the rest of Moscow environs, whence infected animals come freely. The stray mongrel dog and one other pet dog bitten by the mongrel died, the others were given lethal injections by veterinaries. The shelter owner went out of her way to prevent the doctors and militia from doing their duty; she refused to vaccinate her pets and committed a suicide. Another dog with a latent form of rabies was taken by Muscovites in their car to SOUTHERN TUSHINO district that does not even have a single meter of common boundary with the rest of Moscow Region. As a result, ten people today are taking a painful course of treatment and several bitten pet dogs are kept at a field hospital. The management of all local organizations (there are lots of industrial zones in the district, where lured stray dogs live) have been ordered to deliver the four-legged spongers to animal shelters for medical examination. In the meantime, all pet cats and dogs are subject to thorough examination to make sure they are vaccinated. In theory, not a single animal is to leave or penetrate into the hazard zone without being examined first by the doctor. When the quarantine was announced in Northern Butovo, veterinaries called at all apartments because not all owners of their pets, having read stern warnings in the streets, rushed together with their pet cats and dogs to make free vaccination. That time, 200 dogs were forcibly removed from their owners’ apartments and taken for examination, often with scandals and screams. Each pet dog owner displeased with the procedure was reminded that interfering with measures designed to prevent rabies is a criminal offence.
If you intend to take your four-legged friends to the country-house, first, make sure they are vaccinated. Second, take along your pet’s certificate with a note of vaccination. The rabies situation in Moscow Region is rather unfortunate. Last year, 170 infected animals were recorded in 29 out of 39 districts. Those areas may also be quarantined any time.
AiF-Moscow, May 24, 2006.
Return to page of
Federal State Health-care Facility
"MOSCOW CENTER OF HYGIENE AND EPIDEMIOLOGY"
Return to main page