Colombo City poised for Rabies Free City by 2018

Only three positive cases last year:

By Carol Aloysius

Colombo city, once overrun by stray dogs which carried the dreaded rabies virus in them, is now poised to be declared a Rabies Free City by the year 2018.

"We have almost achieved our target to be a rabies free city, due to our successful intervention programs," Chief Veterinary Surgeon, CMC, Dr Dharmawardene told the Sunday Observer.

He said before 2000, there had been fifty positive cases of rabid dogs in the city. The number plunged to three in 2015, with no cases reported this year upto now. "If we can sustain this zero score for the next three years, we can declared Colombo city to be Rabies Free by the year 2018", he said.

He attributed this reduction to the on going vaccination and sterilization programs conducted by the Vet department. "Human rabies Hydrophobia) which is caused by a bite from a rabid dog, is hundred percent fatal. There is no cure for it. Vaccinating these dogs which cause this dreaded disease and sterilizing them is the most effective way of eradicating it," he said.

He said the CMC Vet. Department annually registers and vaccinates around 10,000 domestic dogs in the City. Vaccination of owned dogs are done by conducting: 1) House to House Vaccination programme, where the veterinary supervisors visit each house which owns a dog, 2) Centre Vaccination programmes at temples, playgrounds and community centres etc, 3) and at anti rabies clinics which are conducted every Thursday from 8am to 12 noon. "All vaccines as well as sterlisations done free under supervision," he noted.

Almost 95% of human rabies deaths have been caused by bites from unvaccinated dogs, with the highest number of rabies positive samples in the Western province followed by Galle a study from accumulated data from 1999 through 2010 compiled by the Dept. of Rabies Diagnosis and Research, MRI, Colombo has shown.