In the past few months there have been two reported cases of rabies in the Cayo District. One occurred at an area known as seven miles and another in the lower Barton Creek area. Since those reports there have been at least two other suspected cases that have turned up negative. Whenever such cases are reported it immediately activates a rabies control program with input from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Belize Agricultural Health Authority. Today we traveled west and found out what these government departments have been doing to detect and overcome rabies.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
A team of 12 Ministry of Health personnel were today at the village of San Antonio and on the Pine Ridge Road in the Cayo district conducting house to house vaccinations of cats and dogs in the area. It's a yearly exercise and this time around it coincides with the detection of two confirmed cases of rabies in livestock in the area. This is followed by a third suspected case detected yesterday.
"Up to yesterday, we might jump the gun here, but up to yesterday we had a strong suspect case in the same area so I cannot say we have the situation under control, very strong suspect case."
Now there are laboratory tests that need to be conducted to certify if it is indeed rabies. This, because of the dangers the viral disease poses to humans and animals.
"Rabies is a viral disease that affects all mammals for example dogs, cats, and people just to mention a few. The main sign that you see is a nervous sign so there is a change of behavior. There is the furious form in which the animal or the specie affected becomes affected and we call it the furious form. And then there is the paralytic form in which the animal goes down and you might see some salivation and some tremors or muscle spasms but all in a nutshell it is a change in behavior. It affects humans and that is the great importance, the public health importance in the disease and a person that gets rabies or has rabies cannot survive. There has never been a case of somebody having rabies and then survive so that is the big importance, the public health issue."
"With the confirmed cases that we have had in the district, it is safe to say that virus is in the area and normally people would get the rabies virus through their pets hence the reason why we protect their animals so that whenever these dogs or cats that are vaccinated come in contact with any rabid animal they do not get infected with the disease. For them to contract rabies, they would need to be exposed or bitten by a rabid animal. It could a wild animal, it could a farm animal, and it could also be their pets. If their pets become infected with rabies, then by biting the people they can transmit the disease or if the saliva should fall on an open wound by that they can be infected."
Alfonso Noble,
What happens?
"The person will be infected with the rabies and at the end of what we call the incubation period then the symptoms would manifest themselves and basically the symptoms would be similar to what animals go through. In people we also have the salivation, we have the aggressiveness, and the contraction of the throat muscle."
Alfonso Noble,
And you die?
"Yes."
The finality of the disease then necessitates a coordinated response from the Belize Agricultural Health Authority, the Ministry of Health as well as the Ministry of Agriculture.
"We go out and do the extraction of the brain of the suspect rabid animal and then Ministry of Agriculture will be doing the vaccination of livestock. The Ministry of Health will do vaccination of pets, that's cats and dogs, and the vaccination of people exposed. So everybody has their specific job to do."
"We have been assisting with vampire bat control in fact we have somebody permanently in the Belize district doing the vampire control. In fact he reported he has already caught approximately 42 bats and in the Cayo district too we have mobilized our staff from the Toledo and the Orange Walk District to come in and assist with the vampire bat control. We are also doing part of the funding, we bought some of the equipment to implement the program and presently we have to pay the staff from our fund so we are providing funding and manpower to control the vampire bats."
"Recently we've had a couple confirmed case of rabies in the area and as a result of that we've decided to carry out this campaign at this time. We'll be visiting all the communities in the Cayo District and we intend to visit each house, house to house, vaccinating these animals."
But while pets like cats and dogs are being targeted so too are livestock because of the effect rabies has on this agricultural arm.
"You could have, let's say with the case in the Cayo District, you could have the processors Running W and the others that do processing in the area could lose business of the perception that people might feel that probably the products have rabies in it and you know the fear of catching it so it can affect the business community. From a financial standpoint you could lose animals from rabies which is another cost and the other cost could be that we would probably have to implement in a district wide or a countrywide vaccination program."
"In the case of rabies that is not so, you would have one two or three animals affected which is about 5% of all animals. It is not a disease that spreads like wildfire but if you have 100 animals and 5 of them get rabies it is a loss, it is a big loss. There is a prevention and control program and we focus on vaccination and that would include vaccination of livestock, vaccination of pets, cats and dogs, bat control programs, and the vaccination of humans that have become exposed to the virus and there is also vaccination of humans, we call it pre-exposure for the people that deal with animals that are likely to get rabies like vets, lab technicians, and people that visit caves."
While for now those shots are being administered to cats and dogs, Depaz says there is a deficiency in treatment for livestock.
"I see deficiency in one field and that is the vaccination of large animals. It requires finance; we are talking about a lot of money. We submitted a budget, the committee prepared and submitted a budget of $47,000 and that budget has not gone far. It has not gone where it is supposed to go and so we have our limitations. Presently the limitation is the vaccination of livestock."
But with another possible case of rabies being detected yesterday and again in livestock, it is hoped that that deficiency will be addressed soon.
The latest suspected case of rabies again occurred in the Cayo district. BAHA personnel are conducting tests on brain samples and will be sending it to Panama for further examination. For its part the Ministry of Health is expected to administer as many as 8,000 vaccines to pets in the Cayo district over the next two weeks.