Local rabies program awes funding agency monitor
BRINGING in the campaign to the communities’ most vulnerable, the Bohol Rabies Prevention and Eradication Council (BRPEC) allowed school children to see the real danger of rabies in a variety of activities as a highlight for the World Rabies Day.
The Bohol activities include scouts simultaneously lighting candles and whispering prayers for rabies victims, pupils in classrooms learning about rabies topics in their curriculum and series of information education and communication activities to students did not escape international project funding agency monitor, Dr. Betsy Miranda.
Dr. Miranda, who monitors for Alliance for Rabies Control (ARC) admitted she was impressed of the activities and hopes with their partnership, Bohol can saturate the program province-wide next year.
The World Rabies Day activities form only a part of the Bohol rabies elimination program funded by ARC.
The funding agency is a registered Scottish International non-government organization teaming up with Bohol in crafting a template for vaccine-preventable disease control specifically in rabies elimination province-wide.
The project, the first in Asia provides other areas still hounded by the rabies problem a glimpse of how canine rabies can be eliminated in a region.
It also hopes to motivate people into finding area-adaptable solutions to leash the continuing problem of rabies, ARC, in a press statement said.
It is expected that the program will include the total involvement of all government levels and will mobilize community support to enable rapid scale up of program implementation to cover the entire province and eliminate rabies by 2011.
The P7M program funded by the Swiss UBS Optimus Foundation entails four years of Bohol piloting a province-wide rabies elimination campaign for the prevention, control and elimination of dog and human rabies, it said.
According to ARC, rabies is still recognized as a serious public health concern and persists in most parts of Asia, including the Philippines.
Because of this, ARC sees together with Bohol in putting up steps of enhancing control measures and demonstrating that a vaccine-preventable disease such as rabies is possible to eliminate.
Believing in this, Gov. Erico B. Aumentado and the Bohol Rabies Prevention and Eradication Council (BRPEC) has put up serious commitment to deal with the rabies problem and protect public health, despite very financial resources.
ARC just came at the right time when Bohol authorities have fairly been convinced it can be done.
The plan entails approaching the problem of canine and human rabies elimination in Bohol using strategies that are conceived to assure project sustainability.
First, the BRPEC prepares the project implementation by setting up structures for the community-based implementation of the rabies program.
Then to complement the initial step, BRPEC went through massive local dog population control and Elimination , which also include compulsory dog registration, mandatory leashing and humane elimination of stray, unregistered and unwanted dog coupled with a synchronized massive dog vaccination campaigns.
The program also comes with a public education campaign using tri-media. The campaign hopes to generate cooperation and commitment from the community.
Public education campaign includes fundamentals of responsible pet ownership, explanation of local ordinances and inclusion of rabies prevention into school curriculum.
Finally, another key strategy is dog bite management where authorities put up and upgrade animal bite centers in strategic locations, give out pre-exposure vaccination to children and personnel living or operating in high risk areas. Trainings are also programmed for local physicians on bite management and tissue sample preparations for laboratory examinations.
Ascertaining sustainability, the Bohol program also puts up monitoring and surveillance when it uses a strengthened reporting system for canine and human rabies to ensure immediate information transfer and rapid response. (PIA/rachiu)
