Uganda, March 20 -- The report of a dog attacking and killing the owner's child in Wakiso District on Monday has sparked debate on the impact of climate change, in this case the ongoing heat wave, on the behaviour of animals following separate findings by American researchers that more dog bites occur during hotter seasons.

Whereas Ugandan veterinarians and dog breeders said they had no independent study of similar outcome in the country, America's Harvard Medical School researchers concluded that "the rates of dogs biting humans increases with increasing temperature and ozone".

They write in their 2023 study report that "we also observed that higher Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation levels were related to higher rates of dog bites".

"We co...