Rabies, a Serious Risk to both Man and Dog | ZENOAQ [Nippon Zenyaku Kogyo Co., Ltd.]

The rabies outbreak on the European continent has emphasized for us once again, the importance of preventive measures. Japan has a Rabies Prevention Law under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor. The law came into effect in 1950. Under this law owners must register their pet dogs and also must vaccinate their dogs yearly against rabies. Official tags or certification of vaccination are then given to the owner for the dog to wear at all times. The Rabies Prevention Law also places the responsibility on local health/animal control authorities to catch and impound any stray dogs and then to euthanize them after a certain holding period. There was a serious outbreak of rabies in Japan in the immediate post war period and the law was designed to enable the public health authorities to control such an epidemic.

Because there is an official registration system for dogs in Japan under this law it is relatively easy for the government to assess the number of pet dogs kept in the country. As of the spring of 2003 the official count according to this registry was 6,084,731 dogs. Unfortunately not all dog owners are law abiding. There are those that feel that it is too much trouble to register their pets, those that disagree with the idea of vaccinating their dogs every year, and there are those that have simply forgotten their legal obligations. In any event, though the official count is 6 million, it is said that there are perhaps a little over 10 million dogs in the country at the present. Despite the fact that there is a penalty for non-registration and non-vaccination, law evaders are seldom caught and punished. This is simply due to the fact that it is very difficult to effectively "police" the situation. It would take too much time and effort to check up on each dog owned in every community throughout the country to see whether or not they have been officially registered, not to mention the manpower and costs that would be incurred.

However because of the extreme mobility of animals in our current world the risk of a rabies infested individual making its way into Japan is indeed very real. Experts say that domestic cats as well as dogs should be vaccinated to minimize the dangers of a wide spread epidemic should this happen. Japan is a country about the size of the state of California in the United States. But within this small land space the country carries a total population of about 127 million. The country is divided into 47 prefectures within which are over 3,000 cities and townships, each of which is equipped with the facilities to accept the registration of dogs. The population density is a risk in itself when thinking about diseases, but the widespread network of government offices makes registration of dogs a fairly simple task for the dog owning citizen. Putting two and two together we should be able to find some solution to the issue of boosting the number of registered dogs.

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