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NEW DELHI: Contrary to the Union government’s claim in Parliament that no human rabies deaths occurred in Delhi between 2022 and 2024, information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveals a starkly different reality. According to records shared by Maharshi Valmiki Infectious Diseases (MVID) Hospital – the Capital’s only dedicated infectious disease facility under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) – 18 people succumbed to rabies in the city during this three-year period. The RTI data shows six deaths in 2022, 2 in 2023, and 10 in 2024 at MVID Hospital in Kingsway Camp. These figures directly contradict the written reply submitted by minister of state for fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying S P Singh Baghel in the Lok Sabha earlier this year, which stated that “zero human rabies deaths” were recorded in Delhi from January 2022 to January 2025. The Lok Sabha reply, however, did include data on animal bite cases reported in Delhi during this period – 6,691 cases in 2022, 17,874 in 2023, and 25,210 in 2024 – indicating a steady year-on-year rise in dog bite incidents even as human deaths were officially shown as nil. Data mismatch on dog bites raises question on health surveillance The sharp mismatch between central and local data on rabies deaths in Delhi has raised questions over coordination between health surveillance systems and the accuracy of reporting mechanisms for rabies, a disease that remains 100% preventable yet almost always fatal once symptoms appear. In Parliament, the minister said that under the National Rabies Control Programme, states compile monthly data on dog bites and rabies deaths and upload it to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme portal. This system, he noted, enhanced surveillance of rabies cases and animal bites nationwide. While Baghel was unavailable for comments and did not respond to text messages, his additional PS, Himashu Sharma, said that offhand they cannot comment on the issue of discrepancy in the data, if any, without seeking a proper response from the department. Under the National Action Plan for Dog-Mediated Rabies Elimination by 2030 – jointly launched in September 2021 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying – the National Centre for Disease Control implements the human health component, while the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying oversees the animal health aspect. The plan emphasises mass dog vaccination, sterilisation, and ensuring uninterrupted availability of anti-rabies vaccine and anti-rabies serum/rabies immunoglobulin at govt facilities. These are provided free of cost under the National Free Drug Initiative of the National Health Mission and are part of the essential drug lists of all states.
