Monrovia – Public Heath Consultant and Principal Investigator on Survival National Study in Liberia Dr. Mosoka Fallah said Africa and Asia carry the highest number of people who die from rabies as a result of limited surveillance on the disease.
Speaking Wednesday at the Montserrado County Health Center in Paynesville during the observation of World Rabies Day, Dr. Fallah noted that only a one health system that considers an inter-collaboration among multiple groups will serve as a gateway for a proper rabies control across Liberia and other countries badly affected.
September 28 each year is observed as World Rabies Day Worldwide.
He referenced similar surveillance system used during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia as a necessary yardstick for a workable rabies control program in Liberia.
“It’s cost intensive to vaccinate than educating people on rabies prevention because about 1.5 billion people around the World are vaccinated for rabies yearly,” Dr. Fallah who also chairs the Chemistry Department at the AM Dogliotti College of Medicines stressed.
Experts say 779 people in Liberia are bitten by dogs yearly, with 444 mainly from Montserrado County.
According to him, the control of rabies in Liberia must take into consideration the total involvement of community dwellers, since those affected have the power to change themselves.
“The community has the power to change themselves, and taking the treatment to community dwellers can work in eliminating rabies.
As a country, we are more gifted in speaking than action and this should not be so in eliminating rabies in Liberia.”
Poor disease surveillance is posing serious problem to the public, including rabies control in Liberia as a result of lack of examination system to determine the amount of dogs affected by the disease and the need to urgently address the situation remains a concern.
Dr. Fallah attributed the increase of Rabies in Liberia to the lack of good surveillance system in determining the numbers of dog bites as the result of stray dogs (called here market dog).
“There is no data to determine the amount of dog bites in Liberia and no training has been done for active surveillance in the country,” said Dr. Fallah.
However, the Center for Disease Control through its United States Deputy Director for Programs Dr. E. Kainne Dokubo said in spite of numbers of dogs on the streets of Monrovia, it was equally not advisable to withhold information on dog bites.
He said reporting information on dogs bite would create a change for all measures to be taken by health workers in addressing rabies situation.
For his part, FAO’s Garba Maria Ahmed said the control of rabies was of serious concern due to the lack of sufficient public knowledge on rabies prevention as well as a limited surveillance system, leading to many deaths.
Mr. Ahmed indicated that the human health perspective in treating rabies cases in highly expensive and non-sustainable and the most sustainable way is to be educated on prevention of the disease.
According to him, FAO has sponsored a numbers of people from the Ministry of Health to do a study on rabies diagnosis in the Republic of Guinea aimed at analyzing situation surrounding rabies in Liberia.
“This is a very important disease and nobody should die because of rabies,” Ahmed said.
“If we are all committed and exerted efforts to be able to curtail this disease, because it can be controlled, and most of all we have to target elimination,” Ahmed averred.
The Animal Health Director at the Ministry of Agriculture, Joseph Anderson said there were plans underway by his department to reactivate activities that would be important to animals and human emphasizing the need for sector to be built on the one health platform.
This, he maintained, was a collaboration that needed to be strengthen than ever before, explaining “Rabies is dangerous to human and animals and the One Health project considered so many activities and not rabies only. Animals, especially dogs need special care.”
Anderson believes the one health approach will build collaboration between the Ministries of Agriculture and Health as well as other partners in eliminating diseases from Liberia. But he cautioned the public to keep their dogs healthy and vaccinated periodically to prevent rabies and ensure a safe environment.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah – [email protected]