The news item titled "Hot Air Over Suspension of Stray Dog Sterilisation Programme" published in The Island of Nov. 02 2009 reported that "the All Ceylon Government Medical Association says that the government plans to cease sterilisation of street dogs citing lack of funds."

THIS IS INCORRECT. I inquired from the Director, Public Health Veterinary Services Unit of the Health Ministry, Dr. P.A.L. Harischandra, who is responsible for the national rabies programme, about the veracity of this claim, and he said that the Health Ministry has NOT had suspended the government dog sterilisation programme but decided to sterilise only female dogs. Dr. Harischandra was quoted as saying the same in a weekend paper last Sunday.

Dr. Harischandra also said that the sterilisation programmes conducted in the Central, Sabaragamuwa and North Western Province were being currently investigated by the Health Ministry’s internal auditors for certain anomalies related to payments and number of dogs sterilised thus far. He assured that future programmes would be conducted in such a way as to make them cost effective, sustainable and transparent.

We have been urging the authorities to put the dog sterilisation programme on the right track and we are indeed happy to note that the above measures have been taken.

It is imperative that the dog sterilisation programme be conducted in an effective manner in view of no other dog population control measures such as killing of dogs being practised anymore thanks to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s no-kill policy on dogs.

We have serious doubts whether the sterilizations done in the Central Province substantially targeted the culprit female dog population as we came across huge numbers of puppies in the past several months. Sterilising only females (at least in this crucial first round) is a step in the right direction, we believe.

It is imperative that the huge amounts of public money allocated for dog sterilizations be used for a programme to control the dog populations effectively; we sincerely hope that from now onwards the government-funded dog sterilisation programme will be effected in such a way as to bring about visible and sustainable results.

We also hope that the Health Ministry will soon recruit veterinarians to its MOH offices to conduct dog sterilizations systematically with follow-up programmes islandwide sterilising the owned and un-owned female dog population and replacing the ad hoc sterilisation programmes, which lack transparency.

Secretary, KACPAW
(Kandy Association for Community Protection through Animal Welfare)