If you've spent any time here in Sofia, you will certainly have noticed the curious number of animals roaming the streets. For many years, Sofia has had a serious problem with stray animals, dogs in particular, and has been slowly combating the problem by building new animal shelters every year. Thankfully, the stray dog count has now diminished to around 11 000 with the city claiming that by 2011 there will be no stray dogs on the streets whatsoever.
With such a large number of stray animals, disease control can be a major issue. For example, the National Veterinary Service has said that half of the 40 cases of rabies registered in Bulgaria are in the region of Sofia. In fact, there have also been registered cases of wild animals infected with rabies attacking dogs, such as on August 1st when an infected wild fox attacked a home dog in the district of Vladaya.
This event sparked a district-wide quarantine and vaccination of all animals and Miroslav Naydenov, the director of Sofia's municipal animal control Ecoravnovesie, has said that there is absolutely no danger of rabies spreading in Sofia.
Nevertheless, locals as well as visitors should take an extra bit of care around stray animals while keeping your own pet on a leash. Let's hope that for the good of both animals and humans in the city, the municipal goals for aiding homeless animals will be reached as planned.
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