A young man brings his pet to have a rabies vaccination. - VT
VIENTIANE: More needs to be done to raise public awareness about the dangers of rabies, which kills about 50,000 people across the world each year.
This was the message from Deputy Minister of Health Dr Phayvanh Keopa-seuth when addressing a meeting to discuss Rabies Community Based Surveillance.
Rabies is a serious infectious disease that is transmitted from animals to humans. Infection through the saliva of infected animals enters the wound after a person is bitten by an animal or saliva splashes into the skin, eyes or mouth.
Cases occur mostly in least developed and developing countries, with the main carriers of the virus being warm-blooded mammals, especially dogs.
The meeting explained the importance of rotavirus surveillance in public health institutions and communities, reviewed community rotavirus surveil-lance operations, and discussed successes, challenges, solutions, and fu-ture action plans.
About 40 per cent of suspected rabies cases occur in children under the age of 15.
Every year, more than 10 million people worldwide are vaccinated against rabies after being bitten by an animal suspected of carrying the virus.
In Laos, rabies data is collected by the National Immunisation Programme carried out by the Maternal and Child Health Centre.
Since the data only includes vaccination figures, it is incomplete, and some provinces do not record suspected rabies cases in humans.
Since 2019, rabies has been included in the Disease/Symptom Surveillance System coordinated by the Ministry of Health but the full number of sus-pected rabies cases is not been reported every year and hospitals do not report deaths from rabies.
There are also no reports of animal bites.
The Department of Communicable Disease Control under the Ministry of Health and the Department of Livestock and Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have identified rabies as one of the five priority zo-onotic diseases.
The Rabies Prevention and Control Strategy 2020-2024 was developed and implemented within the two ministries and carries out community rabies sur-veillance in provinces with a high number of reported cases and deaths.
In 2010, the government became party to a strategy to eradicate rabies in Asean countries, and also adopted a national strategy on rabies prevention and control.
From 2012 to Oct 31, 2021, some 298 cases of rabies were reported in Laos as a result of bites from animals, resulting in the deaths of 55 people.
Rabies occurs in more than 150 countries. More than 59,000 people die from the virus every year and it is estimated that one person dies from rabies every 15 minutes. - Vientiane Times/ANN
