MARCH is also Rabies Awareness Month. Did you know that pet-loving Filipinos filed a total of 79,925 Animal Bite Treatment Package (ABTP) claims with the state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) in 2022? According to PhilHealth, this is up nearly 40 percent from the 57,420 claims made in 2021.
This record high claims betray the surge in animal bites all over the country, and each bite represents a potential risk of rabies transmission.
A total of 370 human rabies deaths were reported in the country in 2022, up 30 percent from 284 in 2021, according to the Department of Health (DOH). From Jan. 1 to Feb. 18 this year, another 43 human rabies deaths were reported nationwide.
We need more aggressive pet vaccination programs. We also have to improve treatment access to stem a bigger surge in human rabies deaths in the years ahead.
Rabies is a vaccine-preventable zoonotic disease (communicable from animals to humans) mostly transmitted via an animal bite.
Dogs are the main source of human rabies deaths and contribute up to 99 percent of all transmissions to humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Rabies is virtually 100 percent fatal once clinical symptoms appear in humans, according to the WHO.
PhilHealth paid a total of P230 million in ABTP claims in 2022, up 28 percent from P180 million in 2021. ABTP covers dog bites, but people bitten by other domestic animals such as cats may be covered. Bites from livestock and wild animals such as bats and monkeys may also be covered. It covers the cost of providing post-exposure prophylaxis services such as vaccines, immunoglobulin, antibiotics, and supplies.
The Philippines now has the highest dog ownership rate in Asia with, 67 percent of households keeping a dog, according to a survey by market researcher Rakuten.
And so we ask: What happened to the National Rabies Prevention and Control Program that had originally sought to eliminate human rabies in the Philippines by 2020?
