Rush on jabs after dog bite
Rabies fears spark action
UPPER Highway residents have been shocked into having their dogs and cats vaccinated against rabies after a recent case in Gillitts.
They made use of the state’s veterinary service’s free offer to the public on Thursday, after which veterinary services were scheduled to spend yesterday going from house to house in Stockville Road, where the infected dog may have come from.
A total of 1 042 pets received vaccinations on Thursday and yesterday.
“This is the first time in three years we have had this sort of turnout,” said a veterinary official, who would not be named.
The vaccination station was set up in the area where the rabid dog had been running around.
Among those queueing up was Wendy Watson, who is still receiving injections after the dog nipped her and her friend as they tried to catch it on January 24.
“We went for anti-tetanus injections straight afterwards and we were humming and hawing about rabies ones,” she said.
Then they decided to take the course of rabies injections, which they will continue until February 28. Watson had the complication of plans to fly to Port Elizabeth at 6am the morning after being bitten.
“The first thing I did when I arrived was ask my friend to take me to a pharmacy to order the vaccine for my next injection, which I had on Saturday.”
She and her friend had been in the area for line-dancing classes at the Gillitts Town Hall when they saw the dog running in the road.
The rabies roadshow, offering free inoculations, will return to the “inner outer west”, according to the veterinary official.
“We had 17 cases in Inanda last year but we got it under control in two months.”
The official said if a dog was vaccinated it would be safe from rabies, but warned that if not vaccinated, chances of infection were high.
“If an animal is not vaccinated, rabies will find it – that’s how badly it has infested now.”
The official said a rabid dog running up a street would typically cause other dogs to bark and get agitated.
“Then there’s a fight through the fence and it’s bitten on the nose.
“The closer a bite wound is to the head, the quicker it will turn positive.
“Then the dog (that the rabid dog has bitten) turns on the family and it’ll be the children first, because they’re the smallest.
“It’s hard stuff and that’s the reality.”
A woman who would not give her name said she knew exactly how “real rabies is” because she was from East Griqualand farming stock.
“People just need to believe it’s a very real thing.
“I don’t think people respect or fear it,” she said.
“I saw cows with rabies, it was quite terrifying. I remember one being completely out of control.
“It had to be euthanised, which was quite traumatic for us to see as kids.”
Dog and cat owners queued up for vaccinations on Thursday and for most it was a quick jab behind the neck. Agriculture Department staff also paid the occasional “home visit”, administering the injection in their car.
When a small hatchback rolled up, André and Bianca Dames gave strict instructions to nine Jack Russells in the back not to jump out and animal health technician Taryn Kruis then jabbed them, one by one,
Provincial agriculture department spokesperson Khayelitsha Nkwanyana said another anti-rabies drive was under way in the far north of the province, near the border with Mozambique, having started in Inanda and then moved north to Richards Bay and Eshowe.