Rabies and the Dog Issue in Gujarat

A study in 2010 in Ahmedabad found that the highest concentration of dogs was near garbage disposal areas, lower and middle income group housing societies, and areas where there were deliberate human feeders.

The density of dogs per km. across different wards, varied from 14 to 57.

Towards the end of the count (September- October) a high incidence of mating behavior was identified across Ahmedabad.

In 10 years of Animal Birth Control in Ahmedabad, less than 15 % of the dog population could be sterilized.

The number of dog bites peaks in winter and drops lower during summer. Winter is when the dogs are breeding. 

A concerted effort was made to sterilize a large number of dogs in 2006. It had the effect of reducing dog bites in Ahmedabad by 8.5%. 

Lots of pet dogs were also noticed during the survey. A high percentage of these “owned” animals were found roaming on the streets and were not sterilized.

The poor are suffering deleterious effects of unbearable heat..

A 2017 news report said that over 4000 people died due to heat related injuries over the past four years, in Andhra Pradesh and Telengana alone. The actual heat related injuries and deaths are far more as causes other than the direct reasons like heat stroke and dehydration are seldom accounted for. For instance, dehydration also leads to respiratory and renal failure, especially for those who are prone to heart and kidney ailments. In 2010, Ahemdabad recorded 65 deaths due to heatwave, but in the same period, there were 800 more deaths. Reportedly, various states are developing strategies to minimize deaths.  

A study of deaths during a heatwave in ahmedabad in 2010 found that there had been 43 % more deaths than the reference period in another year. The estimate of additional deaths in the heat wave in france in 2003 also range from 20-50 % for various cities.

Joyashree Roy, an economist at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, found that already, most days in the summer are too hot and humid to be doing heavy physical labor without protection, with wet-bulb temperatures far exceeding the thresholds of most international occupational health standards.

And yet, walk through the city on a stifling hot day in June, and you’ll find people pedaling bicycle rickshaws, hauling goods on their heads, constructing towers of glass and steel. Only a few people, like herself, Dr. Roy pointed out, are protected in air-conditioned homes and offices. “Those who can are doing this. Those who can’t are becoming worse,” she said. “The social cost is high in that sense.”

Given that all cause mortality figures run into 10 million a year in india, increased mortality during the summer season as temperatures climb still higher, could result in hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

A study said that the chance of a wet-bulb temperature above 34°C occurring in India, China, and the Amazon is greater than 33% and the chance of a wet-bulb temperature above 35°C occurring in those same areas is greater than 15%. Since those areas are very densely populated, the annual exposure to wet-bulb temperatures of 35°C or higher could be approximately one million person-days.

Another study found that 75 percent of the population of South Asia will experience extremely dangerous heat waves by 2100 if no action is taken to fight climate change. Four percent will experience unsurvivable heat — that’s 69 million people at today’s population level.

It's not just about the heat... it's about how many people are poor, how many are old, who has to go outside to work, who has air-conditioning.

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The compiled report of six newspapers of Orissa noted 1470 deaths and 1662 injuries in the year 1998-99 due to severe heat wave. Evidences of heat wave incidences available from different parts of India, e.g., Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, clearly indicate that most mortality took place outdoor, among those who live at poverty threshold.

Urban and rural poor who can not afford shelters even with minimum living quality, and those living alone and can not afford access to cooling systems are at higher risk of adverse health effects from extreme heat exposures. In rural India, for example, there are evidences of influences of tropical heat on the prevalence of tropical diseases - prevalence of malaria, iron deficiency in sugar cane cutters, anaemia among tea pluckers, farmers, tobacco and coir workers, suggesting that a large working population are already in pathological state.

In a study in 2009, during the month of May and June, people in most Gujarat districts were limited by the prevailing climatic conditions to tolerating70 to 90 min or less for habitual exposures. Tolerance time of people in the districts of Ahmedabad, Anand, Banaskantha, Gandhinagar, Kheda, Mehasana, Patan, Rajkot and Surendranagar appeared to be markedly less during the summer months. Relatively, however, Surat, Amreli and Kachch were more comfortable regions to live in.

Acknowledgement : This section is sourced entirely from this study. 

India's rising temperatures are already deadly..

India is now two and a half times more likely to experience a deadly heat wave than a half century ago, and all it took was an increase in the average temperature of just 0.5 degrees Celsius, a 2017 study shows.

The findings are sobering considering that the world is on track for far more warming. Last year, a record high of 53.5 degrees C was set in the southwest Pakistani city of Turbat.

Even if countries are able to meet the Paris Agreement goals in curbing climate-warming carbon emissions, that would still only limit the global temperature rise to an estimated 2 degrees C.

The study shows that while India's average temperatures rose by more than 0.5 degrees C between 1960 and 2009, the probability of India experiencing a massive heat-related mortality event—defined by more than 100 deaths—shot up by 146 percent.

The study also found that the number of heat wave days increased by 25 percent across most of India. Areas in the south and west experienced 50 percent more heat wave events, or periods of extreme heat lasting more than three or four days, in 1985-2009 compared with the previous 25-year period.

India is already seeing new deadly highs. Last year in May, India recorded a record 52.4 degrees C in the western city of Jaisalmer.

The vast majority of India's 1.25 billion people are poor and have few options as temperatures hit sweltering levels, drying forests and riverbeds and wiping out farm animals. Very few have the protection of air conditioning.

Most in India rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and climate change is likely to hurt their crops.

Many who work as farmers or in construction will have to shorten their work days by 2-3 hours within four decades, simply because it will be too hot outdoors, according to a 2016 report by the U.N. Environment Program.

Most Indian cities and states are not prepared to handle more heat, even if they understand the devastation it can wreak. In 2010, some 1,200 people died in a heat wave in the western city of Ahmedabad, prompting city officials to introduce seven-day weather forecasts, extra water supplies and cool-air summer shelters.

After more than 2,500 were killed in heat-ravaged areas across India in 2015, nine other cities rolled out a plan to educate children about heat risk, stock hospitals with ice packs and extra water, and train medical workers to identify heat stress, dehydration and heat stroke.

But the nine cities cover only about 11 million people, not even 1 percent of the country's population.

How Hot Will it Get ?

• Delhi will, in a few years' time, be nearly 4 degrees hotter than it was in the 1940s, and 5.6 degrees C hotter by 2050.

• By 2030, Delhi will get nearly 40% less rain than it does now. 

• For Mumbai, a 1-1.4 degree increase in minimum temperatures and a 10-14% increase in extreme rainfall is projected by 2030. since the region already experiences heavy rainfall, even a  small increase could make a huge difference. Mumbai’s location below high tide level and only 10 to 15 m above sea level makes it more vulnerable. High tides could contribute to making an excess rainfall event into a disastrous one, as it did on 26/7. And rising sea level aggravates the danger.

• By the turn of the century, 80 % of india’s population will experience temperatures that are dangerous or un-liveable. The most intense hazard from extreme future heat waves is concentrated around densely populated agricultural Indo-Gangetic river basins. 

• Extreme heat puts pressure on essential services such as energy, transport, and health. During the 2016 heatwave, India’s hospitals received twice as many patients as usual.

• A heat wave struck the normally hot city of Ahmedabad in May, 2010, and temperatures soared to 48 Celsius. They resulted in a 43 percent increase in mortality, compared to the same period in previous years.

• Since then some governments aided by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, have put in place simple measures. In Ahmedabad, for instance, city-funded vans distribute free water during the hottest months. In the eastern coastal city of Bhubaneswar, parks are kept open in afternoons so outdoor workers can sit in the shade. Some cities that had felled trees for construction projects are busy trying to plant new ones.

• In Ahmedabad, city funds have been used to slather white reflective paint over several thousand tin-roofed shanties, bringing down indoor temperatures. In Hyderabad, a similar effort is being tested. A pilot project by a team of engineers and urban planners covered a handful of tin-roofed shacks with white tarpaulin. It brought down indoor temperatures by at least two degrees, which was enough to make the intolerable tolerable.

• The economic fallout of higher temperatures will be immense since the large majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. The decline in agricultural output will endanger the region’s food security. 

• Heatwaves are an economic drain. They can cut goods and services outputs by more than 20 percent in sectors such as manufacturing and construction.

At the all-India level, an energy shortfall of 5 % is expected by 2030.

By 2050, rising temperatures could sharply diminish the living standards of a third of India's population.