02 Oct 2013

The Ministry of Agriculture spends half a million pula each year on rabies vaccine campaigns on dogs and cats without any cost to the owners.

Speaking during the commemoration of World Rabies Day held under the theme “Rabies: understand it to defeat it,”  regional agricultural coordinator in the northwest, Mr Obert Mabutha said stray dogs and cats which reside in institutions where food is available and roam the streets remain a danger to people as they are usually not covered during campaigns.

He urged stakeholders including government departments, non-governmental organization, private sectors, different international bodies and the general public to join hands in order to defeat rabies disease in the country.

He said they should seek information about the disease and understand it in order to defeat it. He said rabies is 100 per cent preventable adding that in most cases preventing rabies is as simple as ensuring adequate animal vaccination and control, avoiding contact with wild animals and educating those at risk.

Despite being 100 per cent preventable, it is estimated that 55 000 people are killed by rabies each year and at least 50 per cent of these victims are children under the age of 15 years.

Mr Mabutha said innocent of the risks, children often play with animals they don’t know and their small size makes them more vulnerable to bites to the head or neck that can lead to a more rapid onset of symptoms. He said in 95 per cent of human rabies cases worldwide, the causes was a bite or scratch from the infected dog and overwhelmingly rabies afflicts the world poorest families.

He urged all to be encouraged to protect themselves, their pets and the community by taking animals for vaccination and by avoiding stray animals and wildlife.

“As we join the rest of the world to raise awareness and understanding about the importance of rabies prevention, we should know that rabies is the oldest deadliest disease known to mankind and that it mostly affects children who are particularly at risk from this deadly disease due to their close contact with dogs which are major global source of the disease,” he added.

Mr Mabutha observed that his ministry has taken a keen interest to defeat and eradicate the deadly disease by disseminating information to educate the public on how it is transmitted and what to do to stop its transmission and what to do if one is exposed.

Giving an overview of Rabies in Botswana, the director of Veterinary Services, Dr Letshogile Modisa said Rabies is on the rise as there is no proper vaccination. He observed that people do not regularly take their pets for annual vaccination and that impact negatively on the ministry’s efforts to defeat the disease.

Dr Modisa revealed that rabies is a highly fatal viral disease of all warm-blooded animals including human beings adding that it is a well-known disease in Botswana and is commonly called Molafo. He said unconfirmed records of the disease date as far back as 1919 with outbreaks in dogs observed first in the south eastern district of Lobatse in 1919 and 1922 and then in the north western  district of Ngamiland in 1936.

The disease was confirmatively diagnosed for the first time in 1938 in an outbreak involving dogs in the Ngamiland district. According to Dr Modisa, the disease has since then spread country-wide and has spilled over into various farm animals and several species of wildlife especially the carnivores adding that deaths in man associated with rabies have been confirmed in the country.

Statistics from Botswana National Veterinary Laboratory from a total of 1406 rabies cases submitted for testing from 20012 to 2011 indicates that less than half of those cases were confirmed positive. In 2012 alone, out of the 142 cases recorded only 68 were positive, the majority of which were dogs followed by cattle, goats, horses and cats. ENDS