NEW DELHI: The Union government informed Parliament earlier this year that Delhi reported no human rabies deaths between 2022 and 2024. However, data obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act paints a very different picture.
According to official records from the Maharshi Valmiki Infectious Diseases (MVID) Hospital—the Capital’s only dedicated infectious diseases facility run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)—18 people died of rabies in the city during this three-year period.
The RTI data shows six deaths in 2022, two in 2023, and ten in 2024 at MVID Hospital, 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, which stated that “zero human rabies deaths” occurred in Delhi from January 2022 to January 2025.
While the government’s reply listed no human fatalities, it did acknowledge a surge in animal bite cases — 6,691 in 2022, 17,874 in 2023, and 25,210 in 2024 — reflecting a steady rise in potential rabies exposures.
The apparent mismatch between central and local health data has raised questions about coordination between reporting systems and the accuracy of disease surveillance in the Capital.
“Rabies is 100% preventable but almost always fatal once symptoms develop. Such discrepancies in reporting undermine effective public health planning,” said a senior public health expert familiar with rabies surveillance.
In Parliament, Minister Baghel had said that under the National Rabies Control Programme (NRCP), states and Union Territories upload monthly data on dog bites and rabies cases to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) portal to enhance national monitoring.
However, the RTI data suggests that local hospital records are not being fully captured by the national database.
When contacted, the minister was unavailable for comment. His additional private secretary, Himanshu Sharma, said the office could not respond “offhand” to the issue of discrepancies without consulting the concerned department.
The Centre’s National Action Plan for Dog-Mediated Rabies Elimination (NAPRE), launched in September 2021, aims to make India rabies-free by 2030. The plan divides responsibilities between the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which oversees the human health component, and the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, which manages animal health measures.
It focuses on mass dog vaccination and sterilisation, and ensuring uninterrupted supply of anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) and rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) at government hospitals. Both are provided free of cost under the National Health Mission’s Free Drug Initiative and are included in all states’ essential drug lists.
