E-Paper
Stray dogs, snake bite cases shoot up in Pune: health dept
PUNE As compared to the first lockdown, the second lockdown saw more cases of dog- and snake- bites in Pune city
PUNE As compared to the first lockdown, the second lockdown saw more cases of dog- and snake- bites in Pune city. While in 2020, only 1,875 cases of snake bites were reported, the number of snake bites during the second lockdown was over 22,000. This could be attributed to the restricted movement of people during 2020. In case of dog bites too, during the first lockdown, the number of reported cases stood at a little above 12,000 which in the following year, rose above 18,000.
Dr Sanjeev Wavare, assistant health officer, said, “In the first lockdown, the implementation of the lockdown was much more strict and people also responded to it very positively. There was hardly any movement on the street and the human-animal conflict was down to negligible. Despite the pressure of tracing Covid-19 cases, we did maintain a record of other diseases and ailments like dog bites and snake bites. Surprisingly, the number of snake bites in 2021 rose by 12 times compared to 2020 and the number of dog bites also saw a rise last year.”
In 2020, only 1,875 cases of snake bites were reported out of which the highest number (352) were reported in December while in April and May, not a single case was reported. In case of dog bites too, the highest number was reported in December when out of 12,734 cases, 1,405 were recorded in the last month alone. In 2021, there were only nominal snake bite cases reported in the last three months, zero in October, two in November, and one in December out of the total 22,825 cases reported.
