The police, in cooperation with other authorities, will be forming 19 inspection teams. These teams will visit local residential areas in the coming two months, to confiscate any unregistered dogs and establish records for those with registration tags, Star Daily said.

Officials from residential committees are responsible for reporting illegal pet dogs in their area and informing residents of unlicensed dogs by posting notices.

Beijing has more than 550,000 registered dogs this year, up 20 percent from the previous year. This has added to complaints on environmental pollution, injuries, illegal dog trading and street animals.

Sixteen people have been detained in the 16,000 illegal pet dog cases since this year, said the police. It has collected fines of at least 160,000 yuan (US$20,253), said the report.

Yu Hongyuan, vice director from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, said the city had no reported rabies cases from 1995 until October 2004. However, local hospitals have received nine rabies cases since last year, he said, adding that seven patients were infected in other cities and two were out-of-town patients who fell ill in Beijing.

In the past five months, rabies killed more people in China than all other infectious diseases reported to the Ministry of Health, and continues to be a growing problem.

In the first nine months of this year, the ministry received 2,254 rabies cases nationwide, up 29.69 percent from the same period last year.