By Danny O. Calleja
PILI, Camarines Sur, March 5 (PNA) –- The Department of Agriculture (DA) is targeting 10,000 dogs in Bicol to be vaccinated during the ongoing observance of the National Rabies Awareness Month.
This number is 10 percent of the 100,000 targeted nationwide for this year’s observance which is set every March to highlight events that would serve as an opportunity for Filipinos to be responsive to the government’s rabies prevention and control program.
This program is boosted by Republic Act No. 9482 of 2007 or the “Act Providing for the Control and Elimination of Human and Animal Rabies” through a three-pronged approach recommended for both the public and private sectors – to avail of dog immunization, to be responsible pet owners and to have dog-bite victims treated immediately.
DA’s regional rabies coordinator Dr. Rona Bernales on Thursday here said the mass dog vaccination will be held simultaneously across the country on March 6-7 with each barangay represented in the drive by each municipality supervised by their respective local veterinary offices.
She said the DA’s Regional Regulatory Division has already distributed 3,280 vials of rabies vaccines to five of Bicol’s six provinces with Camarines Sur getting 1,300 vials; Albay, 1,000; Masbate, 450; Camarines Norte, 430; and Catanduanes, 100.
Each vial could immunize at least three dogs.
Sorsogon was excluded from the distribution since the province has its separate rabies control program being implemented by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, Bernales said.
Catanduanes, on the other hand, was given only a very limited number of vaccine because the island province is already in the verge of being declared rabies-free owing to the provincial government’s long-been ongoing aggressive campaign assisted by the DA.
In preparation for the vaccination schedules, the DA, according to Bernales, conducted last March 3-4 a training on dog immunization held in Naga City and participated in by hundreds of vaccinators and agricultural technicians from Camarines Sur.
Apart from the March 6-7 simultaneous vaccination, another schedule has been set for Polangui, Albay—the pilot municipality for the program in Bicol — on the second and third weeks of the month wherein the local government is hiring hundreds of barangay animal health workers for the purpose, she said.
DA records show that Bicol had 329,522 registered dogs as of 2014, 193,028 of them vaccinated.
Another highlight of the observance, Bernales said, was the launch in Legazpi of the city government’s search for model barangays in anti-rabies campaign in relation to its High Density Rabies Vaccination (HDRV) project being spearheaded by the City Veterinarian Office (CVO).
Winners in the search will be judged according to the number of vaccinated dogs, rate of accomplishment in zero-stray dogs and human and animal casualty, and rate of participation by barangay health workers in the implementation of the HDRV project.
Bernales said Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal wants a rabies-free, zero casualty city this year and onward through this HDRV which will be supported with an ordinance on responsible pet ownership that the local legislative council is now formulating in coordination with the CVO.
The proposed ordinance, according to Rosal, will also provide a forum for an inter-agency coordination on rabies control and prevention program, mechanism for linkages with the barangays and formulate immediate and long-term policies, plans and programs for the control of rabies which the city government shall implement.
It is also expected to provide a medium for the involvement of all barangays in the control of rabies and a system to collate, consolidate and submit all necessary reports as required and perform such other functions as may be necessary in the prevention and control of rabies in the whole city.
HDRV is a project of the DA under its Stop Transboundary Animal Diseases and Zoonoses, a program supported by the Australian Aid, through the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) of the World Health Organization, and is aimed at eradicating rabies in Bicol.
The Australian Aid has given the program Php 40-million funding for its three-year implementation in Albay, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Masbate while the OIE gave the DA 300,000 vaccines for dogs in an effort to make the four provinces dog rabies-free by 2016.
Bicol was chosen for the project owing to its geographical location at the central part of the Philippines, apart from its being considered as a tourism growth area that is being complemented by the aggressive development that the Legazpi City government is undertaking as the regional tourism center.
These developments involve tourism promotion, infrastructure, investment, health, environmental protection and peace and order, among others.
Rosal has stressed that if there are no cases of rabies in a certain place, more local and foreign tourists will be enticed to come. (PNA)