Nearly 1,400 animal attacks on people recorded in 2009

There were nearly 1,400 recorded cases of people being attacked by animals in the Czech Republic last year, according to figures just released by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics. Around three quarters of the cases involved dogs biting people. There were no fatalities, though 11 deaths have been caused by dog bites in the Czech Republic since the year 2000. A quarter of the victims of animal attacks ended up in hospital; a similar percentage were children.