ILOILO City – The Department of Health’s (DOH) Center for Health Development (CHD) in Western Visayas urged the public to become responsible pet owners after the region posted the second highest human rabies deaths in the country.
Ame Liz Mardoquio, program coordinator of the CHD Rabies Prevention and Control Program, said they already recorded 17 rabies-related deaths from Jan. to May this year; two were confirmed positive.
Mardoquio noted three of the total number of cases were found negative based on the polymerase chain reaction (a laboratory technique used to make multiple copies of a segment of DNA) conducted by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
“The rest are probable cases but the diagnoses were death secondary to rabies based on their death certificates,” she said.
Mardoquio added they have already investigated 10 cases and the remaining seven are still probable cases.
“According to the DOH’s Epidemiology Bureau, we are now in the top 2 in the whole Philippines when it comes to rabies death, next to Region 3 (Central Luzon),”she said.
The highest death was in Negros Occidental with eight.
Aklan and Iloilo province has three cases each; Capiz has two; Iloilo City has one death – six of which were children less than 13 years old.
As of the first quarter of the year, the region recorded 22,206 animal bites.
In 2018, the region logged around 93,520 animal bite cases with 17 human rabies deaths.
“You are all aware that we have shortage in terms of vaccine for humans. At the same time, the vaccine allocation for canine is also limited,” she said.
She added the P8.1 million worth of vaccine that was procured in the last quarter of 2018 had already been allocated to animal bite treatment centers.
“They should seek consultation the soonest possible time in case of bite and scratch or if cats and dogs have licked their wounds,” she stressed. (With a report from PNA/PN)
