Quezon City 4th district Rep. Marvin Rillo believes that the national government's rabies prevention program has failed despite a sizable funding of up to P900 million a year.

“The NRPCP has missed its targets to eliminate human rabies by 2020 and to declare the Philippines rabies-free by 2022, despite ample funding of between P500 million to P900 million every year,” Rillo said in a statement Sunday, Nov. 27.

The NRPCP stands for the National Rabies Prevention and Control Program, which was established by law 15 years ago.

“We want the NRPCP’s failure investigated, with a view to recommending stronger corrective measures to finally eliminate human deaths from rabies in the country,” said Rillo, who filed for the purpose House Resolution (HR) No. 462.

The resolution prods the House Committee on Health to conduct an inquiry into the NRPCP in aid of legislation.

Citing Department of Health (DOH) figures, the rookie congressman said a total of 322 Filipinos died of rabies from Jan. 1 to Nov. 5 this year compared to 235 over the same period in 2021. This is a surge of 37 percent.

Rabies is a vaccine-preventable zoonotic disease (communicable from animals to humans) mostly transmitted through an animal bite.

The Anti-Rabies Law of 2007 established the NRPCP to control, prevent the spread of, and eventually eradicate human and animal rabies, and to promote responsible pet ownership.

DOH records show that rabies infections in the country, mostly due to unvaccinated dogs, has a case fatality rate of 100 percent.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also considers rabies an extremely deadly disease, saying that “once clinical symptoms appear in humans, rabies is virtually 100 percent fatal".

Meanwhile, on account of the rise in dog bites, the state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) paid P180 million in Animal Bite Treatment Package (ABTP) claims in 2021, up 22 percent from the P148 million paid in 2020.

There were 57,420 ABTP claims paid in 2021, up 21 percent from the 47,320 claims paid in 2020. From January to June this year, Philhealth spent another P92.6 million to pay for 32,598 ABTP claims.