By Robert Anane
Accra, Sept 29, GNA – Dog owners have been urged to vaccinate their dogs against rabies, and also keep them from straying.
By so doing, rabies infections could be completely eradicated from the country.
Dr. Benjamin Kissi Sasu, Risk Communicator, Ghana Veterinary Service(GVS), said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, in commemoration of World Rabies Day,
“Dogs are helpful to man in many ways. We cannot do without them. What we need to do as humans, is to be responsible caretakers of our animals.”
He said as a dog owner or keeper of any animal, one’s responsibility was to ensure that in addition to providing the animal with food and safe drinking water, it was also well attended to medically, and prevented from straying, in order not to risk disease infection.
Dr. Sasu said while rabies destroyed dogs and other animal s as well, it could also affect humans.
He urged the public to be responsible towards the animals they kept saying, “Lets play our role to end rabies by 2030.”
For this year, the Head of Epidemiology of the Veterinary Service Directorate, Dr. Fenteng Danso, said 27 cases of rabies had been recorded in the country. Ten of the cases are from the Kpone Katamanso municipality , in the Greater Accra Region.
Rabies is a viral disease that is spread by infected saliva of an animal or human, coming into contact with cut skin of another mammal including humans, or the mucus membranes such as the mouth or eyes.
Typically however, rabies is transmitted through the bite of an infected animal.
While dogs are mainly known as the vectors of rabies transmission, other animals such as cats, cows, goats, horses, bats and even humans could also transmit it.
While rabies is hundred percent fatal, it is also hundred percent preventable.
All it takes is to vaccinate animals against rabies, especially dogs and cats, and to go through anti-rabies treatment, once you are bitten by not only a dog, but any animal. Even scratches from animals should not at all be taken lightly.
The moment a human or animal begins to show symptoms, rabies is almost always fatal.
That is why every animal scratch or bite, especially if the animal is not vaccinated or is allowed to stray, should be treated as though the animal were rabid.
The rabies virus finally attacks the brain and spinal cord, after an infected animal or person has gone through painful and harrowing suffering, including, convulsions, coughing, breathing difficulties and a number of others.
GNA
