WHO funds to help fight KZN pandemic

THE World Health Organisation has topped up the coffers of the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs by R16.5 million to help in its fight against the rabies pandemic in the province.

The announcement was made by the MEC of the department, Meshack Radebe, at the launch of a rabies rollout programme in Durban yesterday.

“These funds will be used to bolster our current efforts – we are looking to vaccinate between 500 000 and 600 000 dogs, or 70 percent of the dog population in the province, annually,” he said.

Professor Louis Nel, who is a rabies expert from the University of Pretoria, said funding and support had also come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which had helped to launch a series of pilot programmes geared to- wards the elimination of rabies in dogs.

“KZN was chosen for many reasons, one of which was that the government was already making efforts to contain the virus. It also has continentspecific challenges, in the way of infrastructure,” he said.

Nel added that another challenge faced by the province was that the treatment of the disease fell between the two sectors of veterinary science and health.

Kevin le Roux, head of the Rabies Elimination Project and project manager for the foundation, said the disease was especially deadly because it circulated in the dog population but could spread to other species, including humans.

“We want to try improving diagnostics and maintaining the cold chain. We are also fitting dogs with GPS tracking devices as a way to monitor the spread of outbreaks,” he said. A YOUNG Underberg farmer who contracted rabies from a stray dog a month ago has been declared brain dead.

Doctor Grant Lindsay, spokesman for the family of Graeme Anderson, 29, said that his team had discovered through a scan on Wednesday that Anderson was brain dead.

“His family will have to turn the (life support) machines off in the next few days,” he said.

Anderson has been receiving treatment at a Pietermaritzburg hospital, including an experimental treatment that