Kathmandu, June 30

Kathmandu Metropolitan City today issued a notice warning city dwellers not to let their pet animals defecate in the open.

KMC said it issued the notice as owners of pet animals in the city were found taking their pets to defecate in the open.

Doctors and environmentalists said open defecation by pets could spread diseases during rainy season.

Head of Urban Health Division at KMC Hari Kumar Shrestha said KMC had instructed ward chairs to make sure that people in their locality abide by the rule. “We will be forced to take action if people violate the rule,” he added.

According to the notice issued by KMC, there are around 80,000 pet dogs and 22,000 stray dogs in Kathmandu. “A dog excretes 124.28 kg of faeces on an average in a year and each gram of faeces contains 230,000 coliform, which can spread diseases,” reads the notice.

The notice also states that faeces of a single dog, if left unattended for a year could spread more than 28.58 billion bacteria in the environment.

According to co-coordinator of Clinical Research Unit at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, above 70 per cent of all infectious diseases are caused by animal faeces. Bookworms, tapeworms and E coli get transmitted into human bodies through animal faeces.

Similarly, animal faeces can spread diseases like diarrhoea, hepatitis, dysentery, giardiasis and cholera.