Hossana residents say they were forced to kill dogs after rabies deaths

Residents in Hossana said some dog owners hanged their pets after three children died of rabies, fearing arrest or fines if they refused to comply. People in the central Ethiopian town said local groups affiliated with government told owners to destroy their dogs, and that even vaccinated animals were not spared.

The killings laid bare how quickly a public-health emergency can turn into a punitive response when prevention is weak. Hossana’s mayor, Samuel, denied that his administration ordered the killings and said the acts were illegal, but residents said the threat of enforcement left them little choice once rabies deaths spread panic through the town.

Ethiopia has spent years trying to build a formal response. The country is carrying out an Integrated Rabies Control and Elimination Strategy covering 2018 to 2030, and rabies-control experts say canine transmission is hardest to interrupt until about 70% of dogs are vaccinated. Yet a 2025 review in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases said dog vaccination coverage in Ethiopia remains far below that level, leaving the virus able to circulate in dogs and spill over into people.

The gap between policy and reach is visible in the numbers. The Global Alliance for Rabies Control says Ethiopia has a national rabies control strategy and a SARE score of 2 out of 5, while also noting that a 2024 campaign vaccinated about 7,780 domestic dogs in local cities. The World Health Organization’s Ethiopia immunization country profile, published on July 13, 2024, and a joint Food and Agriculture Organization event with Ethiopian authorities on November 8, 2024, both framed rabies as preventable but still dangerous, and tied control efforts to the One Health approach.

The Hossana episode shows what happens when that system fails at street level. Residents were left trying to protect children without reliable vaccination access, while fear of rabies, fear of fines, and fear of arrest converged into mass dog killings. In a country where rabies still causes deaths and dog bites despite ongoing campaigns, the cost was paid by both families and animals.