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0 Ghana’s progress in the fight to eradicate rabies risks being eroded if the country does not improve its level of commitment to these efforts.
The Veterinary Council attributes the slow improvement in the country’s initiatives to a lack of political will from the government to address the issue.
Rabies remains a global public health threat, and Ghana doesn’t seem to be moving closer to the global target for its elimination by 2030 and with 26 deaths reported out of 31 cases so far this year, stakeholders fear the situation could worsen without more effective interventions.
Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that 70,000 lives are lost to rabies annually. In Ghana, poor knowledge about the disease and negligence by some pet owners in vaccinating and restraining their pets is driving the rise in cases, particularly from stray and unvaccinated dogs within the communities.
A pet, especially a dog, is required to receive its first rabies vaccine shot within the first three months of its life and then annually. However, this has not been the case for many dogs, especially stray ones in the country. A visit to the La Veterinary Hospital revealed that the hospital had already recorded 19 cases of dog bites this year. At the facility, we witnessed a number of pets brought in for medical attention.
Three-year-old DD is a puppy brought to the hospital by its owner for refusing to eat for 3days. He has been diagnosed with anemia and receiving the treatment he needs.
Dr Esther Donkor is a Veterinary doctor at the hospital and tells us the cases of dog bites reported at the facility is alarming.
“Most of them come and are willing to do the vaccination but because of financial constraint they are unable to. This year alone we have had 19 cases of dog bite and these dogs that bite them belong to their neighbors. And a nurse I heard had rabies and she died last month. They need to understand the importance of the vaccines for the Dogs”. She revealed
DD is not the only pet that has a responsible owner. We met Lawrence Owusu Ansah, a pet owner who shared how important it is for him to bring his dog for all the needed vaccines, said he ensures his pet is restricted enough to prevent it from biting people.
‘‘It’s my pet and I have to take good care of it. I make sure she gets all vaccines needed so that she is also protected. My house is gated so I don’t allow it outside so that some other dogs will not bite it to infect it or otherwise. She is not well so I brought her for checkup.” He said.
The Veterinary Service is worried about the increasing number of rabies cases caused by stray dogs, particularly in urban communities.
Dr. Benjamin Kissi Sasu
Dr. Benjamin Kissi Sasu said, “Rabies is a vaccine preventable disease and so there is no way we should still be having these cases being recorded in the country. We do yearly outreaches and how many dogs do we vaccinate? Just about 200 and above. There are bye laws that need to be enforced on stray dogs, but the implementation is the problem. This year, 31 cases of rabies was recorded and just like our chief veterinarian said, 26 were in humans and they lost their lives.
Globally the WHO reports that over 70,000 lives are lost to rabies and 40% of the figure are children. Our cases keep increasing and it’s not the best. Irresponsible pet ownership must stop and when you are bitten by a dog or cat, please don’t only go to the hospital to report, visit the vet services so that the particular animal can be taken in and quarantined.” He explained.
Though the global target for rabies eradication is 2030, Europe has already succeeded in eradicating the disease through vaccination campaigns. However, Ghana’s efforts to achieve the target appear unrealistic.
The Registrar of the Veterinary Council of Ghana, Dr. Kingsley Mickey Aryee, blames the inability of leadership to tackle the issue head-on with proper financial commitment.
Dr. Kingsley Mickey Aryee
He said: “with the capacity that we have, although our human resource capacity is quite low, is very low, but we think that with government, community commitment, employing more people, giving us the logistics, improving our laboratory capacity, both human and logistical, we are sure we can be able to eradicate the greatest thing by 2030.
But the way things are going, I wouldn’t say it’s realistic, but it’s possible because we didn’t. We’ve still got five years from 2025, to 2030 we’ve still got five years, yes, and we are saying that a lot can be done because we in the Veterinary Services Department, and we in the Veterinary Council are committed to make sure that by 2030, if we get everything right, we know we can kick rabies out of Ghana but even if we are continuing with the pace, it might not be a problem for me, but the pace might worsen. Because every year, if you look at it, it’s getting worse, the pace might worsen, and when it gets worse, we will have a problem.” He lamented.
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The post Fighting rabies: Political will needed to attain 2030 global target – Veterinary Council first appeared on 3News.
