Federal manpower boost for anti-rabies drive

BAU: The federal Veterinary Services Department will deploy more personnel to Sarawak to assist their counterparts in vaccinating dogs to contain the rabies outbreak in the state.

Agriculture and AgroBased Industries Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said 10 to 20 more officers would be sent over so that more vaccination teams could be set up in the 22 rabiesaffected areas in Kuching, Serian and Sri Aman divisions.

“For example, the affected Bau area has 104 villages and there could be 8,000 dogs accord ing to a survey. To vaccinate all these animals would require a lot of manpower.

“As such, I have discussed with the state government and the Veterinary Services Department to send more personnel.

“I will also inform the National Disaster Management Agency if there is a need for assistance from other agencies, including the Armed Forces, police and Civil Defence Force,” he told reporters when visiting a mass vaccination exercise at the Civic Centre here yesterday.

Ahmad Shabery assured the public that there were sufficient doses of antirabies vaccine in the country and more would be ordered if necessary.

“We now have about 47,000 doses of the vaccine.

“So far about 23,000 animals from the 22 areas have been vaccinated,” he said.

He also said the situation is stable as of now.

“But if there are new areas, we will carry out the same measures of surveillance and vaccination within a 10km radius.”

On the proposed immune belt to be created along the SarawakKalimantan border, Ahmad Shabery said this was still in the planning stages.

He said it would require certain regulations to be drawn up, such as making it compulsory for all dogs to be licensed and vaccinated.

State veterinary officer Dr Nicholas Jenek said yesterday’s vaccination exercise involved six teams with 3,000 doses of vaccines.

He also reminded dog owners to keep their pets indoors for two weeks to 28 days after vaccination.