visakhapatnam the animal birth control abc and antirabies vaccination arv programmes for stray dogs have been hit hard since march due to the covid19 pandemic only about 10 of dog population in visakhapatnam have been sterilized and vaccinated in the first six months of the current financial yearwhile the greater visakhapatnam municipal corporation gvmc had to stop the programmes due to the lockdown animal activists and ngos also had to curtail their programmes to save their volunteers from contracting the infectionas per gvmc officials there are approximately 15 lakh stray dogs in the city the civic body however does not have any official data to support the fact one of the main reasons for not maintaining proper data is because many residents just chose to abandon their pets on the roads when they shift places or for other reasonsthe gvmc has been conducting birth control operations for stray dogs since 2005 and sterilize and vaccinate around 150 dogs per week the abc and arv programmes however started sometime in the mid90s by some ngoswe have a staff strength of 60 out of which around 12 tested positive one of our activists even succumbed to the virus under such circumstances we are compelled to reduce our activities pradeep nath founder member of visakha society for protection and care of animals saidthe ngo which initiated the programmes in 1998 have so far sterilized and vaccinated nearly 6400 stray dogs this year however they have only managed to vaccinate less than 300 dogsin the last 10 years chances of rabies in stray dogs have reduced considerably only about 10 of dogs in visakhapatnam may need to vaccinated in fact there have been no human deaths due to rabies in the district in the last 10 years added nath