Vets warn owners to get rabies shots for their pets

VETERINARIANS have urged animal owners to urgently get their pets and livestock vaccinated against rabies.

Rabies is a fatal viral infection of the brain. The virus is spread by contact with the infected saliva of a rabid animal.

Humans can come into contact with the virus-laden saliva through bites and it can end up in the eyes, nose, mouth or broken skin.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported an increase in the last few months of last year in the number of human rabies cases across the country.

In the eastern provinces of South Africa, the NICD flagged rabies as a re-emerging public health problem associated with dog rabies.

Dr Alison Lubisi from the Diagnostic Services Programme at the Agricultural Research Council, Onderstepoort Veterinary Research, said animal lives were just as important as human lives, and healthier animals meant healthier humans.

Lubisi said it was essential for pets and production animals to be vaccinated because disease-causing pathogens or germs spread quickly and were not only transmitted through direct contact.

"In the case of kennel cough, for example, the germs causing it are also airborne and a mere cough can release it into the air. Disease-causing pathogens or germs can be found in the soil, water, animal excretions, on the surfaces of utensils, in the air, anywhere.”

Certain vaccines are optional, but the core vaccines are mandatory for dogs and cats every year.

These are combination jabs such as the DHPP (distemper/adenovirus/ parainfluenza/hepatitis) for dogs, which protects them against canine distemper virus, canine adenovirus-2 (infectious canine hepatitis and kennel cough), canine parainfluenza virus and canine parvovirus, which severely affects puppies.

Cats need to get a combination vaccine that protects them against feline viral rhinotracheitis, feline calicivirus and feline panleukopenia virus. Vaccination against feline hepatitis virus-1 is also core in South Africa.