Bali Suffering Rabies Epidemic

Bali suffering rabies epidemic
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The Indonesian government is to vaccinate all dogs on the holiday
island of Bali to combat a raging rabies epidemic that has left 76
people dead over 2 years, an official said on Friday [6 Aug 2010].
Around 34 000 people have been bitten by dogs on the island, which is
popular with western tourists, in the first 7 months of this year
alone, authorities said.

"We aim to vaccinate all dogs in Bali by the end of this year to curb
the spread of rabies. We'll start to mass vaccinate the dogs in late
September," Bali animal husbandry agency chief Putu Sumantra said.
"There are still hundreds of thousand of dogs that have not been
vaccinated. About 200 teams will be deployed to work in 700 villages," he said.

Unlike the rest of mainly Muslim Indonesia, where people do not
generally keep dogs, Bali is a predominantly Hindu island and dogs
are common either as pets or strays. Sumantra said that since 2008,
about 300 000 dogs had been vaccinated. Tens of thousands of stray
dogs had also been culled.

Bali Health Agency head Nyoman Sutedja said there were 34 000 cases
of people being bitten by dogs in Bali this year, compared to 28 000
dog bites in the whole of 2009. "The rising cases of bites have made
us worry. We need more anti-rabies vaccines for people here," Sutedja
said. The latest victim of rabies, a 43-year old Balinese woman, died
on Tuesday [3 Aug 2010]. Australia and the US have issued travel
warnings to tourists about the prevalence of the disease.

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