{"id":2366,"date":"2016-10-19T08:42:24","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T08:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=2366"},"modified":"2016-10-19T08:42:24","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T08:42:24","slug":"doh-targets-rabies-free-philippines-by-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/doh-targets-rabies-free-philippines-by-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"DOH targets rabies-free Philippines by 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Health (DOH), in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture (DA) observed World Rabies Day by underscoring the theme: Rabies: Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate.<\/em>, which emphasizes the two crucial actions that communities can do to prevent rabies. It also reflects the global target to eliminate all human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"rabies\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rabies is a fatal disease transmitted to humans through animal bites or even scratches, most commonly by dogs. It is vaccine preventable, but once infection begins, death is inevitable. In the Philippines, rabies continues to be a public health problem and is responsible for the death of 200-300 Filipinos annually, with children having the highest risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cRabies is considered a neglected disease that is 100% fatal but 100% preventable. Effective and safe medicines have been available for decades to prevent the disease in humans and animals. None of these deaths should have occurred since we have the necessary interventions to prevent rabies such as: (1) promotion of responsible pet ownership, (2) early consultation when bitten by animals and (3) timely administration of vaccines,\u201d Health Secretary Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial explained.<\/p>\n

From 2010-2015, 1,463 deaths were recorded by DOH from human rabies and 180 deaths from human rabies were noted from January 1 to September 24 2016.<\/p>\n

A total of 783,879 animal bites across the country were registered in 2015. This is 10% higher than in 2014 when the total number of animal bites was 683,802 cases. The increase in the number of reported cases is attributed to the improved surveillance and services which enabled bite cases to seek treatment at established public Animal Bite Treatment Centers (ABTC) and\/or private Animal Bite Centers. As of March 2016, a total of 486 ABTCs are located all over the country, 32 of which are in Metro Manila.<\/p>\n

As part of the rabies elimination campaign, a total of 41 provinces\/areas were declared \u2018rabies-free\u2019 by DOH and DA, Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI) from 2008-2016.<\/p>\n

The DOH, through the National Rabies Prevention and Control Program (NRPCP) in partnership with different agencies and local government units continue to implement strategies and activities to respond to this public health problem. One strategy is the provision of Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) in all DOH-recognized ABTCs\/ABCs, and Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) especially for high risk individuals and students in high incidence zones. Meanwhile, PhilHealth through its Animal Bite Treatment Package defrays the cost of PEP treatment among all qualified members.<\/p>\n

The DOH has lined up various advocacy campaigns to disseminate information about the illness and how to prevent it. The DOH also encourages pet owners to have household pets vaccinated at designated time periods. Lastly, the public is warned against approaching stray and possibly rabid animals and is reminded to immediately go to the nearest ABTCs\/ABCs when needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaging responsible. Kung ikaw ay may alagang hayop, pabakunahan ito agad laban sa rabies. Kung ikaw naman ay nakagat ng hayop, huwag itong ipagsawalang bahala, pumunta agad sa pinakamalapit na animal bite treatment center upang ito\u2019y mabigyan ng kaukulang lunas o bakuna laban sa rabies.\u201d <\/em>Ubial concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Health (DOH), in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture (DA) observed World Rabies Day by underscoring the theme: Rabies: Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate., which emphasizes the two crucial actions that communities can do to prevent rabies. It also reflects the global target to eliminate all human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,4,35],"tags":[639,1351,19,1274,20],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness-2","category-newsmakers","category-wellness-2","tag-department-of-health","tag-doh","tag-health","tag-rabies","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2368,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions\/2368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}