By Rey Anthony Chiu
PIA - Bohol
Sustainability of the local rabies prevention and eradication program rests in the fate of the World Health Organization proposal to the Bill Gates Foundation, the National Rabies Coordinator of the Department of Health said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) proposal contains not just Bohol’s program sustainability but the whole of the Visayan Islands as well, just as the national rabies team wishes to pilot the islands for its unique containment, which could be a positive point on the basic quarantine element.
National Rabies Coordinator from the Department of Health Raffy Deray told the Provincial Rabies Council members of the development during an assessment workshop at the Flamingo Room of Bohol Tropics Resort November 14.
It may be recalled that Bohol leaders got alarmed when reports surfaced about the rising dog-bite cases here in Bohol, one which catapulted the Central Visayas to the top of the country’s rabies watch-list.
The alarm was based on the fact that rabies and tourism may not go together and with the threat, no amount of tourism promotions may beckon tourists to come to Bohol anymore.
In response to the problem, the Provincial Rabies Prevention and Eradication Program was unleashed just as the local legislators instituted measures to keep the program off its legal problems. Vice Governor Julius Caesar Herrera, Sangguniang Panlalawigan Committee on Agriculture chair led the provincial junta in an innovative crafting of an ordinance that would be passed ahead of the corresponding national law.
Dr. Deray earlier cited the Bohol Rabies Program as a bold move pointing out that the province has in fact gotten ahead of the national government, which has just wrapped up its finishing touches on the law and set-up its implementing rules and regulations as well before its publication.
With the Provincial Anti-Rabies Ordinance, which was passed recently, it also put into gear the P16M-four year massive anti-rabies program, which aims to get Bohol rabies free by 2010.
The ordinance puts the backbone for the four year implementation of a massive rabies prevention and eradication program but it still would entail sustainability funds despite the measures inset by the law and the implementers.
The program actually includes putting up standby funds for human and animal rabies vaccines, a continuing vaccination and registration program, stray dog elimination, information and education components, monitoring as well as quarantine services.
A little more than two months after the massive and simultaneous registration and vaccination program, Dr. Stella Marie Lapiz said only about 19,784 of Bohol’s 165 thousand dog population has been vaccinated, and some of them may have been loosed again.
Letting a vaccinated dog go astray and mix with the unvaccinated dogs could defeat the purpose as rabies can get back as soon as a vaccinated dog gets in contact with unvaccinated dogs, Dr. Lapiz explains.
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