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Poor Rabies Mitigation in Bali
Jakarta - Even though human victims of rabid dogs in Bali continue to fall; the government has not been serious in mitigating the disease. Aside from the increasing number of human victims, it was also shown by further spread of the disease in the island.
Collaboration between the central and local government is also yet to be integrated.
According to General Chairman of the Indonesian Veterinary Medical Association (PDHI), Dr Wiwiek Bagja, on Wednesday (3/1) in Jakarta, there must be good will from both the central and local government to overcome rabies together.
Integrated collaboration must be done between ministries in developing concepts and implementing them in the field. Similar collaboration must exist between the central and local government which until now is still not integrated.
“Who is responsible for rabies mitigation is still unclear until now,” she said. Also issues regarding field progress, budget, and how it is done are still unclear.
“The source of rabies is in animals. Therefore, the main priority of rabies mitigation should be host animals, not humans,” she said.
Dr. Mangku Sitepu, member of both the Indonesian Veterinary Medical Association (PDHI) and the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI), said rabies mitigation done by the central government and local government is not synchronized. Even the Livestock Service Office thinks that dog-related issues are not their responsibility because they only cover for livestock. “Then who is responsible for the dogs,” he said.
Since the Dutch colonization era, rabies mitigation has been divided into two. The human aspects are the responsibility of public health agencies, while dog aspects are the responsibility of veterinarians. “Now everybody is concerned with the humans, who is addressing the animals? While animals are the source of infection,” he said.
Mangku said that dogs must always be vaccinated as long as the disease exists. Re-vaccination is given 6 months after the last vaccination.
He also said that vaccinating dogs are much cheaper compared to vaccinating humans. Dog vaccines are already domestically produced while human vaccines are still imported. “The priority is to conduct elimination with controlled vaccination in dogs, not vaccinating humans,” he said.
Rabies victims in Bali continue to fall. The high number of dog-bite cases in Bali makes disease management difficult and drastically increases the budget. By December 2009 16,680 cases of people being bitten by dogs have been reported.
Since the IV-2008 quartile until late 2009, 22.2 billion rupiahs have been spent on rabies mitigation. The funds were from the central government, provincial government, municipal/district government in Bali, the Australia Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and the World Health Organization (WHO). (MAS)
Source: Kompas