Bureaucracy blocks public initiative to combat rabies

I Wayan Juniartha ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Ubud   |  Fri, 04/17/2009 2:12 PM  |  Bali

A gathering on rabies held Tuesday in Ubud showed that existing bureaucracy had hampered rather than aided promising anti-rabies initiatives from the local community.

Representatives from the Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA), a leading local NGO on animal rights, said they were locked in a prolonged and seemingly futile debate with local government officials on the best way to handle the threat posed by rabies to Ubud, one of Bali's tourism gems.

BAWA PR manager Tineke Indradjaya said the charity organization was ready to spearhead the effort to inoculate all dogs - both pets and strays - in Ubud with rabies vaccines.

"We're ready to dedicate our resources to this effort. And we're also prepared to raise the funds needed to finance this campaign," she said.

She added the campaign could cost an estimated US$500,000.

BAWA's initiative was warmly welcomed by around 60 Ubud residents who took part in the gathering. The meeting was organized by the Concern for Ubud Forum (FPU) and the Ubud Community Empowerment Body (LPM).

"However, we need to acquire official permission from the government to carry out this effort," Tineke said.

But official permission was the very thing that BAWA could not get at the meeting. Two government officials in attendance, Ketut Gede Narayana of the Gianyar Animal Husbandry Agency and IB Komang Upeksa of the Gianyar Health Agency, said the local administration would never green-light such an initiative.

Narayana said restricting the campaign to only Ubud would be seen as unfair to other areas in the regency. Such jealousy, he added, would create an unnecessary political problem for the local administration.

"If such a campaign can be conducted in all areas in the regency, then we could possibly *allow this*, and it would be good if BAWA could finance it," he said.

Upeksa, however, cited the rabies' mitigation official standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the Health Ministry as the very thing standing in the way of the campaign.

"The SOP clearly states that for free zones, the approved measures will not include inoculation of people or animals. In this zone, it is sufficient to treat bite wounds with antibiotics, analgesics and other treatment. There is no need to dispense rabies vaccines for humans *VAR*," he said.

Gianyar regency, he stressed, was still categorized as a free zone. Under the SOP, areas are broken down into infected zones, where cases of rabies have been found, identified and verified through lab tests; suspected zones, where suspected cases of rabies have been found but without lab test verification; and free zones, where no cases of rabies have been found.

"It's not a matter of the government being miserly about investing a huge amount of money to buy the vaccines; rather, it's a matter of procedure," he said.

But he later conceded the VAR was expensive, adding dog-bite victims could get the vaccine at private hospitals.

Tineke said BAWA would continue lobbying the local administration for permission to conduct mass vaccinations of dogs in Ubud.

"We will facilitate and support any effort to prevent a rabies outbreak in this tourism resort," said FPU head Ketut Suardana.

An average of 50 dog-bite cases a month are recorded in Gianyar, 20 of them in Ubud. Four people are confirmed to have died in the rabies outbreak in the southern tip of the resort island, with another five deaths suspected to be due to the virus.

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