B

ali administration says it will launch a three-month, island-wide campaign in late September to inoculate all of Bali’s dogs against rabies to stop an ongoing epidemic.  

Rabies has spread to nearly all regencies and municipalities in Bali. At least 74 people have died after displaying symptoms of rabies, 35 of whom tested positively for the disease.

The drive would inoculate all of the island’s dogs, Bali Animal Husbandry Agency head I Putu Sumantra.

“Our target is very simple: By the end of this year all dogs on this island will be inoculated with the vaccine,” he stated.

The agency’s said that from 2008 until mid-2010, more than 300,000 dogs were vaccinated and around 100,000 dogs were killed to stop the disease’s spread.

“We estimate that there are still hundreds of thousand dogs that are not inoculated,” he said.

In the same period, a series of laboratory tests conducted on brain samples taken randomly from culled dogs confirmed that more than 400 dogs had been infected with rabies.

The epidemic, which started at three villages in south Badung, has now spread to 190 villages throughout Bali, the agency reported.

“The mass vaccination drive will be executed by 200 teams. Each team will be comprised of six officers, including three dog-catchers and one vaccinator,” Sumantra said.

The teams will be deployed to the island’s eight regencies and one municipality by late September and will finish inoculating dogs in more than 700 villages by late December, he added.

“The teams will be assisted by village administrations and officials,” he said.

The central government has allocated Rp 15 billion (US$1.68 million) from the state’s annual budget and the Bali administration has earmarked Rp 3.3 billion from the province’s annual budget to fund the drive.

Bali administration will hold another vaccination drive on June 2011.

“We have requested Rp 8 billion from the state budget and Rp 6 billion from the provincial budget to finance the follow-up drive,” he added.

Sumantra said that the vaccination drive would not affect the agency’s regular vaccination program, since it had stockpiled a large supply of vaccines.

“We now have 250,000 doses in stock. In the next few days, this stock will be augmented by another 250,000 doses. The public must not worry about the availability of the vaccines,” he said.

Sumantra said that the vaccination drive would play a critical role in the administration’s effort to make the island rabies-free again.

“If the drive manages to meet its objectives then we can declare Bali a rabies-free province by 2012,” he stated.

Bali Health Agency head Nyoman Sutedja said that the number of people bitten by dogs in Bali had reached an alarming level. In the first half of 2010 the agency recorded 34,000 dog bites, as opposed to 28,000 dog bites in the same period last year.

“Consequently, the demand for human antirabies vaccine has increased sharply,” he said.

Bali administration spends at least Rp 2.7 billion per month for the human vaccine, which is provided free to dog bite victims.