By Kodjo Adams
Accra,Sept. 24, GNA – Dog owners have been advised to vaccinate their dogs once every two years.
Mass vaccination has the advantage of interrupting dog to dog transmission of the disease to achieve dog herd immunity of 70 per cent of the dog population.
Dr Lawrence Lartey, Public Health Specialist at the Ghana Health Service, gave the advice in Accra at the launch of this year’s World Rabies Day.
It was on the theme, “One Health, Zero Death.”
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture under the auspices of the GHS has begun sensitisation and intense education on ways of curbing rabies at the source to mark the commencement of World Rabies Day Celebration.
The Day coincided with the recording of cases of human rabies in the Ashanti Region recently.
Owing to this, the GHS has developed the “One Health Approach” to aid in increasing knowledge about the effects of both human and animal rabies and to step up efforts to eliminate the disease.
The Approach is an intersectoral collaborations among institutions concerned with human health, animal health and environmental health.
It focuses on the diseases’ prevention and control, data collection and analysis, dog population management, information, education, and communication, intersectoral collaboration and legislation.
Dr Lartey said the ‘zero by 30’ strategy had three approaches, which included mass vaccination of dogs, accessible post exposure vaccines for human and community education.
Dr Lartey said that human vaccines were expensive such that for every exposed person who had received a Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) vaccine, 50 dogs could have been vaccinated at the same cost.
He urged the public to report suspected cases to authorities, protect their children from coming into contact with both domestic and free roaming dogs and maintain sanitation to discourage free roaming dogs in the communities.
He said even though the Ministry of Health had assured of the availability and access to PEP, human rabies prevention should not rely on it.
Dr Patrick Abakeh, Chief Veterinary Officer at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said dogs were the primary carrier of human rabies since they were considered to be man’s favourite companion.
According to Dr Abakeh, rabies death in humans was 100 per cent preventable through prompt and appropriate medical care.
The Chief Veterinary Officer, providing data on the disease, said four out of the seven samples submitted to the Accra Veterinary Laboratory were positive, representing 57.1 per cent.
“This year, seven samples have been received so far and 28.5 per cent was positive,” he added.
He then called on development partners to support the government in eliminating rabies in the country.
GNA