Dogs bite 3, Ambattur residents fear rabies

CHENNAI: Three attacks by stray dogs in two days have left Ambattur on tenterhooks, fearing that the dogs that bit a senior citizen and two children could have been rabid. The city corporation played down the situation, saying it had caught the dog that bit a woman in her sixties on Monday. But Ambattur zone veterinary surgeon Dr Selvaraj said the trapped dog was with the SPCA, and that the corporation had yet to ascertain if the dog is rabid.
"There is no need to panic," he said. "There are no rabid dogs roaming the streets of Ambattur." Kamalapuram Colony resident R Ambujam, however, may not be be quite reassured - a stray dog having attacked her unprovoked as she was attending to household work in her backyard on Monday. "She had no time to react. The dog bit her in multiple places," Ambujam's son R Srinivasan said. "We rushed her to a nearby hospital."
Srinivasan said locals had complained to the corporation about the stray dog situation. "During the weekend, strays bit two children who had come to a Sai Baba temple in the neighbourhood," he said.Mathew Varghese, a resident of Ambattur, said the complaints to the civic body evoked no response. "We had been complaining about the stray dog trouble for the past few weeks," he said, adding that corporation officials did not send anyone to respond to the complaints.