Breaking News:A dog-bite every two minutes, why Bihar must rethink public-health priorities– What Just Happened

In the statistical imagination of public health, danger usually arrives with a mosquito’s whine or often respiratory distress accompanied by the fever chart’s upward tilt. But in Bihar, according to the state’s Economic Survey data for 2024-25, the most common public-health threat is not malaria or some acute respiratory infection. It is dog bite.

The numbers are startling. In the year under review, Bihar recorded 283,274 cases of dogs biting people. In the same period, there were 29,198 cases of malaria and 31,025 cases of acute respiratory infection (ARI)/influenza-like illness. Even acute diarrhoeal disease—long a staple of summer headlines—stood at 18,128 cases.

The figure of 283,274 dog-bite cases in a year translates into a striking daily reality. Spread across 365 days, it amounts to approximately 776 cases every single day in Bihar. That, in turn, means about 32 people bitten every hour—or roughly one dog-bite every two minutes. Statistically, it is not an occasional public-safety concern but a round-the-clock concern.

The hierarchy of risk, at least on paper, has inverted. A Bihar resident appears far more likely to be bitten by a dog than to contract malaria. This is not an anecdotal surge confined to a particular district or season. The numbers are distributed across the state—urban and rural, north and south of the Ganga.

Patna alone recorded nearly 30,000 dog-bite cases in the review year. Other districts, less discussed in national discourse, report thousands more. The data does not distinguish between minor nips and grievous attacks; it simply counts the encounters. And its scale is impossible to ignore.

Public-health policy in Bihar, as elsewhere, has historically organised itself around vector-borne disease, maternal mortality, malnutrition and sanitation. The malaria tally—29,198 cases—would once have set off alarm bells. Today, it sits quietly beside a dog-bite column nearly 10 times its size.

In January, while hearing petitions concerning stray-dog attacks, the Supreme Court indicated that it might consider imposing “heavy compensation” on states in cases involving dog-bite injuries or fatalities. In fact, there are also arguments suggesting that accountability might extend to individuals who feed stray dogs if such feeding contributes to aggression or territorial clustering. Dog attacks can carry “lifelong” consequences—a phrase that moves the issue from nuisance to trauma.

In Bihar, the implications are significant. Compensation regimes imply not only moral responsibility but fiscal liability. If even a fraction of the 283,274 cases escalates into litigation or serious-injury claims, the burden on the exchequer could be considerable. More importantly, the question of governance—who is responsible for managing stray populations, ensuring vaccination, enforcing sterilisation drives—becomes unavoidable.

The politics of stray dogs in India has been emotionally charged. Animal-rights advocates argue that indiscriminate culling is both illegal and inhumane. Residents of crowded neighbourhoods, by contrast, speak of children walking to school in fear, of elderly pedestrians knocked down, of night-time packs that turn lanes into contested territory. The law, through the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, attempts a middle path: sterilisation, vaccination and release. In practice, implementation varies widely.

What the Bihar Economic Survey has done—perhaps inadvertently—is to supply the debate with a scale. The 283,274 incidents in a single year constitute a pattern and surpass diseases that have traditionally dominated public-health briefings.

There is also an underlying challenge. Dog bites are a gateway to rabies risk. Even if the state has improved post-exposure prophylaxis and vaccine availability, the sheer volume of cases places pressure on supply chains, cold storage and district hospitals. Every bite potentially triggers a cascade: wound management, anti-rabies vaccination, immunoglobulin in severe cases, follow-up visits. Public-health systems built to fight malaria parasites now find themselves dispensing rabies shots at scale.

In districts like Patna, Muzaffarpur and Purnea, the figures hint at urban density intersecting with unmanaged animal populations. In rural districts, they suggest that the phenomenon is not merely metropolitan. The street dog in Bihar is a daily presence—outside markets, at railway stations, near schools, around garbage heaps that double as feeding grounds.

If indeed a heavy compensation and individual accountability becomes the order of the day, Bihar’s policymakers may find themselves compelled to treat stray-dog management not as a municipal afterthought but as a core governance issue. Sterilisation drives would need funding and monitoring. Waste management—so often the silent enabler of stray proliferation—would need reform. Clear guidelines on community feeding might have to be framed, balancing compassion with public safety.

For now, the most striking fact remains statistical. In Bihar, in 2024-25, the ordinary citizen was nearly 10 times more likely to encounter a dog’s teeth than a malarial mosquito. It is a reversal that unsettles the familiar narrative of tropical risk. The menace is no longer invisible and airborne. It is four-legged, visible, and woven into the everyday landscape. Clearly, Bihar’s most pervasive public-health threat does not buzz in the night. It barks.

Subscribe to India Today Magazine

– Ends