Beijing urged to expand chip implants in dogs to keep rabies in check

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Beijing lawmakers have urged the municipal government to implant digital identification chips in the city's roughly 2 million pet dogs to prevent unvaccinated dogs spreading rabies.

Beijing's dog registration rate is too low, giving the authorities too little information about pet dogs' vaccination situation, Lei Decai, head of the rural affairs committee of the Beijing municipal people's congress, said Saturday.

Beijing has 950,000 registered dogs and about 1 million unregistered dogs whose vaccination is hard to check, Lei said. More than 30,000 people were bitten by dogs in Beijing last year, with nine deaths linked to rabies.

The rural affairs committee has formally submitted the proposal to expand the digital chip program to the congress for consideration, Lei said, adding that the move would help authorities monitor the whereabouts of large dogs, which are banned in urban Beijing, and those that weren't properly vaccinated.

The Chinese capital piloted the project four years ago when vets started to inject rice grain-sized chips into the necks of dogs in an urban district. A dog's information, such as breed, inoculation record, and owner's name show up on a the chip reader.

But the project has not yet been rolled out across the city.