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Unvaccinated pets remain a challenge in the fight against rabies, says DOH Chief

Philippines | National

Unvaccinated pets remain a challenge in the fight against rabies, says DOH Chief

By Sonny Daanoy

The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday, April 8, expressed concern over unvaccinated pets amid the country’s fight against rabies.

Photo from Pixabay

In a public briefing hosted by PTV on its segment “Bagong Pilipinas,” DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa reiterated that rabies is a "preventable" disease. However, the problem is that there are a lot of pets that remain unvaccinated.

"But rabies, again, is another preventable disease, and what is being vaccinated here are the pets,” Herbosa said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“If they (pets) are vaccinated, if they bite you (human), there's no problem. But the problem is, there are still many pets that are unvaccinated," Herbosa explained.

He then pointed out that the cases of rabies in 2024 “have an increase, although it's still lower than last year."

On April 4, the DOH logged 89 human rabies cases from Jan. 1 to March 16.

The data on rabies cases indicated a two percent decrease from the 91 cases reported during the first quarter of 2023.

According to the DOH, the reported rabies incidents were associated with dog bites (82 cases), cat bites (5 cases), and bites from other animals (2 cases).

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2024/4/4/doh-logs-89-human-rabies-cases-in-q1-2024

Furthermore, Herbosa said that Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco "Kiko" Tiu Laurel intends to allocate a budget for purchasing rabies vaccines that are approximately worth P19 to P25 each.

In a separate report, Laurel emphasized that P110 million is required to procure rabies vaccines necessary for inoculating approximately 22 million dogs and cats in the Philippines in 2025.

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2024/4/3/philippines-needs-p110-million-budget-to-procure-rabies-vaccines-da-chief

Related Tags

Rabies DOH

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