Serious efforts to contain rabies

BANGKOK, March 13 (TNA) -- The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives is seriously implementing measures and taking swift actions to control rabies. Lertviroj Kowattana, permanent secretary of the ministry, said four people already died of rabies this year and the figures indicated that the situation of the disease was not as serious as those in past years. He said the disease killed 13 people in 2016 and 11 in 2017. The situation was being relieved thanks to public education on rabies, he said. According to him, rabies epidemics were declared in 37 provinces from January to March 12 and the zones remain in 26 provinces at present. Some province has only one epidemic zone and other provinces were declared with a few zones, each of which has a 5-kilometer radius. The declaration of such temporary epidemic zones remains valid for 30 days and the disease did not re-emerge in the zones, Mr Lertviroj said. Apai Suttisunk, director-general of the Department of Livestock Development, said 932,807 animals had received rabies vaccine this year and the department planned to vaccinate 5-6 million animals between March and May and 10 million within September. Besides, its officials have sterilised 79,431 animals to control rabies with a target of 200,000 animals being sterilised within September. The department has trained 15,500 volunteers on the vaccination and intended to expand the training to 17,500 volunteers within September. (TNA)