CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Over a hundred residents of this city, as well as people from the academe and other professionals, attended the recent forum on March 28, 2019 about the government's anti-rabies campaign held at the ballroom of Hard Hat Cafe.
The said forum focused on the new guidelines of Republic Act 9845, otherwise known as the Welfare Act in line with this year's celebration of Rabies Awareness Month, which carried the theme "Towards Responsible Pet Ownership."
Dr Perla Asiz, the city veterinarian said during the Talakayan organized by the Philippine Information Agency regional office 10 that under the new guidelines of RA 9845, villages should organize Barangay Rabies coordinators which would undergo a deputization training as members of Barangay Pamatong Team (BPT).
The team would be trained for proper determination of human and animal rabies especially dogs and cats. They will be officially deputized by the barangay for the full implementation of violations stipulated under RA 9845.
Rabies is a viral disease that is 100% fatal but 100% preventable,according to Asiz. The Department of Health(DoH) targeted a Rabies elimination through the tight coordination of all Local Government Units(LGU) in the country on 2020 or next year but in Northern Mindanao who has 5 Provinces with 9 cities,only the island Province of Camiguin is "Rabies Free".
The City Veterinary Office declared the villages of Bugo and Tablon in the East and Carmen in the west as villages who has high incidence in Rabies.The city has a total of 6,756 Rabies patients in 2018, 3,110 are patients from the city run J.R.Borja Memorial City Hospital.In Northern Mindanao,Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental has the highest Rabies incidence.
Dr. Asiz added that every year,city's dog population are increasing since 90%of the residents are dog owners with 58,217 dogs registered or an increase of 10% from 2017's population of 49,012 with 56,526(97%)are vaccined.She said that 15 years old and below usually are the victims of Dog bites.
The Rabies Forum culminated with an awarding ceremony of Top 3 "Best Rabies Compliance" villages which was 1assessed by the Bureau of Animal Industry in Northern Mindanao,a conduit of the Agriculture Department. Prizes at stake are Php25,000.00 for the 1st Prize,Php15,000.00 for the 2nd Prize and Php10,000.00 for the 3rd Prize with trophies. ###
