SIBU: Assistant Minister of Housing and Public Health Dr Annuar Rapaee calls for the establishment of rabies immune belt for Sibu division.
He highlighted that this is important to curb the spread of the deadly rabies into the division and upwards onto Bintulu and Miri.
Dr Annuar, who is also Assistant Minister for Education and Technological Research, disclosed that the rabies control programme has been implemented in the division to keep the disease at bay.
He also refuted claims by certain quarters that the stringent preventive measures adopted in this division was entirely because he hails from the town.
“The key intention here is we want to create a rabies immune belt for Sibu Division. Meaning, we are doing our level best to vaccinate some 70 per cent of the dogs in Sibu division to immunise canines against the disease.
“For that, we seek the full cooperation from pet owners to get their dogs vaccinated through the free mass anti-rabies vaccination exercise. And thereafter, to restrict the movement of their pet dogs within their house compounds at all times, especially within the month after vaccination as the vaccine only works after one month of injection,” said Dr Annuar, who heads the rabies control team during an appreciation dinner here on Saturday.
The dinner was hosted to thank various government agencies involved in the programme for their hard work and the media for disseminating the information to the public.
Also present were Ministry of Local Government and Housing public health chief Dr Cheong Yaw Ling, Sibu Rural District Council (SRDC) deputy chairman Robert Lau and secretary Justani Joni.
The Nangka assemblyman went on to say the team had covered five out of the 29 centres providing free anti-rabies vaccination to pet owners.
He noted there were 396 dogs vaccinated at Hui Ning Garden here on Saturday, making it the largest number of dogs vaccinated in a single session thus far, since the exercise started on Jan 20.
For the record, a total of 1,171 dogs have been vaccinated in the division as at Jan 27.
At the same time, more than 25,000 pamphlets have been distributed in public places such as coffee shops and markets.
Information had also been disseminated to the 160 schools in the division. Towards this end, he revealed that there were no plans yet to carry out house-to-house vaccination of dogs.
“This is a very tedious exercise and also requires more manpower. Furthermore, the vaccines have to be kept at a temperature of four degree Celcius.”
Among other things, Dr Annuar revealed that samples taken from dogs caught in Sibu division had been sent to Kuala Lumpur to check for rabies virus.
“So far so good, we have no positive results (on the samples) yet. Please keep a clean record so that Sibu will be declared as the immune belt for the whole of Sarawak. We have to maintain this, especially public awareness” he added.
The free anti-rabies vaccination is part of a two-pronged rabies control programme besides the removal of strays.
On calls by certain quarters to press the panic button, he was strongly against the suggestion.
“In fact, this group of people even suggested that the banner incorporate the image of a ‘coffin’ to make it more ‘scary’ in order to get better response from the public towards the vaccination programme.
“We do not believe in stirring up unnecessary alarm among the public, which will be counter-productive for our programme. Instead, continuous public education is the best approach — a move in the right direction,” he asserted.
He also called on all the agencies involved to work as a team to ensure the success of the programme.
Tomorrow (Jan 30), the free mass anti-rabies vaccination programme will be at Sungai Assan area from 9am till 4pm.
Members of the public can call 013-8077964 or 084-310808 to find out the exact location and dates for the free vaccination for their dogs.