I am saddened and concern by the recent news on the detection of the 12thRabies human infection from Sri Aman, who is currently being treated in the Infectious Disease Ward in Sarawak General Hospital. It was reported that the patient was bitten by his pet dog in January 2018 and only started developing symptoms in August 2018.
What is concerning is that issue again could be prevented if proper measures were taken and greater urgency was put in to address the issue. The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee lead by Datuk Amar Douglas UggahEmbas could have been more upfront with the matter to give a sense of urgency not only to the personal involve, but also the public.
I understand the need to keep public order, or the need to not cause panic, but it is also the right of the people to know the extend of the infection, so they can take the necessary precautions, with urgency and together we play our part in curbing the spread of the disease, and most importantly, avoid another unwanted death.
Constant education and compulsory vaccination of dogs must go on. I give credit to the Department of Veterinary for their constant and tireless efforts to help control the spread of the disease even though they may be short staffed and are putting their lives on the front line. Again, this issue also needs to be address. The lack of staff in Jabatan Veterinari Sarawak, which is under the State Government is not just a recent matter but have been there for quite a while.
When I brought up the Emergency Motion in parliament regarding this matter, the Minister reaffirmed the State’s responsibility on the matter as it is listed in Schedule 9 under the Concurrent List of the Federal Constitution. Thus, State has full power to determine the methodology, procedures and lead the efforts in an attempt to curb the spread of the disease.
Education on wound washing and seeking treatment after bite must be further enforced again. I believe, people do not sense the urgency on the matter due to the different ways the State Government choose to portray the situation. Because of that some people may even forget about the seriousness of the outbreak and thus no motivation or urgency to take the necessary precautions like bringing their pets for vaccination.
There has to be more stress that the fight against rabies is an ongoing process and rabies is still an on-going disease. We may need to continue these efforts for years. We can only say safely say that things are under control if there is no human or animal rabies case reported after 2 years. However, the State Government through the Committee has constantly claimed that things are under control even though reports on the ground may speak differently.
Vaccination of all dogs and its population control through spay and neuter has to be further emphasized. It takes 2 to tango, and thus the public also play a role in bringing their dogs for spay or neuter either to the government vets, or even private vets. There also need to have more collaboration between the public and private sectorin order to tackle this issue and also handle the load of vaccination.
On top of that dog licensing has to be enforced in order to properly monitor our dog population. Every dog must be licensed and for it to be licensed, it needs to be vaccinated and spayed. The local council plays an important role in this, where in Kuching, both MBKS and MPP needs to put greater urgency on the matter both in implementation and enforcement of the relevant bye laws to properly control the matter at hand.
Thus, we all play our part in curbing this outbreak. I hold on to the call for an external audit to be conducted not to find fault, but mainly to see what has been done, evaluate it with international standards, and then plan what else can be done to control the matter. I am grateful for the RM 3 million emergency fund by the federal government in view of the motion I raised as well as the approved RM 18 million that part of it will be used to upgrade the lab here so that we do not have to send all samples to Ipoh anymore.
This will hopefully better equip us to handle the outbreak or any outbreak in the future better. Again, this is not a new issue, but due to the neglect by the previous BN administration, that we are in such a situation as now.