The fact that children are often victims of these scourge makes it even more important to forge an alliance to stop the virus.
Dogs are the source of the vast majority of human rabies deaths, contributing up to 99% of all rabies transmissions to humans mostly in Asia and Africa. At least 40% of people who are bitten by suspect rabid animals are children under 15 years.
The vaccination of dogs,cats and monkeys is a vital key to stop the scourge of the rabies virus,every responsible pet owner should vaccinate their pets against rabies.
The annual vaccination of pets against rabies will prevent this threat to life of man and other animals which might act as carriers of the virus and further propagate the virus.
Prevention by vaccination is much better and cheaper as lives will be saved because there is no cure for the disease.
The war on rabies in Ghana is through a two pronged approach according to the health minister ;One is to increase the availability of vaccines to cure infected humans.
The ministry has therefore ordered a new batch of vaccines .2) In a more pro-active approach to tackle rabies, the minister said “you must actually just vaccinate the dogs”. He said the ministry will go round region by region, identify and vaccinate dogs against rabies.He also said there is the need for a sensitization for dog-owners to tag their pets.
In Nigeria,the scourge can be prevented by education,mass vaccination of dogs and provision of affordable human diploid anti rabies vaccine.
The enforcement of stray dog laws and dog licensing with tags will go a long way to check the scourge of the rabies virus. Pet owners should be held accountable for the health status of their pets,and must show documentation as regarding vaccination status.
Empowerment of animal control officers, especially at local government levels will help eliminate the scourge.
The generation of adequate data as regarding number of dog per zone/local government/state will give a clear picture of our pet population, the area of concentration /major foci of these pets which will assist in proper planning for budgeting for vaccination programmes. more
#rabies #endrabies #savechildren #vaccinate #pets.
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