Western Mindanao winning battle against rabies

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The Western Mindanao region has registered 40,000 cases of dog bite incidents but reported no case of the highly fatal rabies virus since last year, the Department of Health (DOH) regional office said.

The DOH office issued the statement as it observed the Anti-Rabies Month along with the Department of Agriculture and the City Veterinary Office.

Dr. Joshua Brillantes, local health chief for DOH Region 9, said the office has not reported any human rabies case last year. In 2013, by comparison, 18 human rabies cases were registered.

Brilantes said at least three people died from the virus in 2013, when all victims in cases did not seek any medical attention after they were bitten by dogs.

Assistant City Veterinarian Arnedo Agbayani, meanwhile, said 5,574 dog bite cases were already registered in the city for the first quarter of the year alone, while there were only 4,535 in the whole of 2014.

Agbayani noted that most of the dog bite cases were caused by pet dogs and not from stray dogs.

Agbayani also warned that incidents might increase over the dry season as children will not be away in school as dogs' spend their mating season.

The two officials said, however, that even with the high number of dog bite cases, the city has not registered any rabies cases so far.

They credit the development to the massive anti-rabies immunization campaign for dogs.

The health department earlier earmarked P80 million for the procurement of anti-rabies vaccine to be distributed nationwide.

The office of the City Veterinary has also been advocating of responsible pet ownership while implementing campaigns such as providing barangays with anti-rabies vaccines, ligation services for the pets and gathering stray animals to achieve a region-free rabies.