Pet owners asked to vaccinate their animals
The Ashanti Regional Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Kofi Kwansah-Filson, has advised pet owners to vaccinate their animals to forestall the outbreak of rabies in the region this year.
He explained that out of the 400,000 pets in the region, the number vaccinated was less than 10 per cent, and added that the situation posed a great threat to both animals and humans in the region which recorded 24 deaths through rabies last year.
Dr Kwansah-Filson disclosed this to the Daily Graphic during an excercise for the mass vaccination of pets at Bonwire in the Ejisu-Juaben District of the Ashanti Region.
The exercise was organised by Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Network of Ghana (FELANG), in collaboration with the Veterinary Services of Ghana, Ghana Health Service and the Veterinary Unit of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The vaccination at Bonwire was part of activities to mark this year’s ‘World Rabies Day’ in the country.
Mass vaccination
The mass vaccination of pets in the country had in the past been the responsibility of the government and was done by the Veterinary Services which organised national immunisation exercises across the country, but the support from the government was withdrawn in 2000, making it imperative for owners of pets to pay fees ranging from GH¢5 to GH¢20 for each pet to be vaccinated.
Dr Kwansah-Filson called on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to intervene by supporting the massive vaccination of pets in their areas to avert any rabies outbreak in their regions and the country as a whole.
Dr Helina Acquah, National President for Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Network of Ghana (FELANG), educated the people on rabies and urged them to help break the chain by vaccinating their pets annually.
Voluntary vaccination
She expressed concern about the refusal of pet owners to voluntarily vaccinate their animals, saying such acts exposed both children and adults to the danger of getting infected with rabies.
The Principal Investigator for Dog Bites and Rabies in Ghana, Dr William Tasiame, hinted that research conducted by FELANG between 2009 and 2014 showed that vaccination of pets was around 15.5 per cent nationwide.
That, he said, made it very dangerous to live with pets in the country since people could be infected anytime by rabies, when their pets were infected.