HYDERABAD, Nov 4: A one-day mass media workshop was jointly organized here on Saturday by the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institute of Health, and the Ministry of Health to sensitize the target audience on the prevention and control of rabies in Pakistan.
The director general, health services, Sindh, Dr Prof Fateh M Khan was the chief quest.
Addressing the workshop, the director general congratulated the WHO, the National Institute of Health, and the Ministry of Health for organizing the workshop and highlighting an important issue.
He said that rabies was a fatal disease which spread when an animal or human being was bitten or licked by an infected animal. He said it posed a serious public health challenge.
He said that globally about 50,000 people died of this disease each year, while in Pakistan rabies’ morbidity had attained alarming proportions.
He said it was a matter of grave concern that so many precious lives were lost due to a disease which was absolutely preventable and curable.
Dr Khan said keeping of pets was quite common in both urban and rural areas but the people were generally unaware of the appropriate measures to be taken for keeping pets.
He said the vaccination of pets was not practised as a result of which the number of rabies carriers kept on increasing.
He pointed out that the developing countries had successfully eliminated rabies by launching a vigorous campaign including the elimination of vector, raising awareness, and educating the masses on preventive measures.
In Pakistan, however, he said, aiming at complete elimination might be too ambitious, and concerted efforts must be made to control the disease and bring the mortality rate to a minimum since raising awareness and public education was a key strategy for controlling the disease.
Dr Khan also stressed the need for motivating the people to have their pets vaccinated and sensitizing the masses to report any suspected rabid animal to the health and veterinary authority concerned.
Dr Jalil Kamran of the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, while introducing the subject, gave an overview of rabies. Giving the background of the disease, he said that this fatal disease had created fear in the human society ever since the third millennium B.C.
He said that the animals were reported to be affected by the disease in early Babylonian, Greek, and Roman periods. He said that it was brought to the US from Europe where the settlers brought rabid animals with them.
He pointed out that countries like Australia, China, Cyprus, Ireland, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, the UK, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the islands of the Pacific had achieved rabies-free status through a vigorous elimination campaign.
Dr Athar Saeed Dil of the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, emphasized that vaccination against rabies was necessary after being bitten by any animal even though dogs were the main carriers of the virus.