By MOFFAT CHAZINGWA  and CHILA NAMAIKO –

TWELVE people including six school-going children have been bitten by stray dogs in Lufwanyama District.
Lufwanyama District Commissioner Alex Kalela, who confirmed this yesterday, said St Joseph area in Lufwanyama had of late recorded an increase in the number of stray dogs which were attacking residents in the area.
He said the children that had been bitten by the stray dogs were all pupils at Kalumbwa Secondary School.
Mr Kalela feared there could be an outbreak of rabies in the area if the presence of stray dogs was allowed to continue.
“I have instructed officers from the veterinary department to conduct tests to examine whether the dogs are rabid,” he said.
He said he had further instructed relevant authorities to kill all dogs wandering aimlessly and whose owners were not known.
The district commissioner appealed to residents to refrain from keeping dogs if they had no capacity to look after them.
He said most of the dogs straying around were those that were not being looked after by the owners.
Meanwhile, Choma Municipal Council (CMC) will next month start killing stray dogs in the district.
The stray dogs have been attacking people and recently, a school girl and three women of Munzuma Site and Service were bitten and treated at Choma General Hospital for suspected rabies.
CMC assistant public relations manager Robert Zawe said in an interview yesterday that the council had received numerous complaints from members of the public about the high population of stray dogs in various townships.
“As a council, we decided that we start eliminating stray dogs because according to the law, a house should only have a maximum of two dogs, but in Choma, there are a lot of stray dogs which have become a nuisance,” he said.
A senior citizen, Teddy Musokwe said in a walk-in interview with the Times that a number of people in Munzuma had been bitten by stray dogs.