As the federal government prepares to unveil the National Strategic Plan for elimination of dog-mediated human rabies, the Director Federal Veterinary and Pest Control Services/Chief Veterinary Officer of Nigeria, Dr. Maimuna A. Habib, has called for holistic efforts to combat and eradicate the menace of rabies in Nigeria.
Calling attention to the danger of rabies and the need for state governments to intensifying house to house vaccination and awareness campaigns in LGAs, towns and villages, Maimuna said there is need for proper coordination of the campaign requires huge fund and technical support from partners to achieve greater results.
“There is an expedient need to close the little gap existing in the One Health Structure at Sub-National level, especially with regards to Rabies control to allow healthcare professionals from both human and animal sector take full ownership of the control and eradication strategy.
“Dog owners must ensure that they renew their anti-rabies vaccine licenses by ensuring that they visit government veterinary facilities for their dogs to take annual shots of the vaccine, which is entirely free.”
She stated further that between January 2021 to October 2022, 53 out of 232 bite cases from predominantly dogs have been linked with confirmed cases of Rabies in 11 states of Anambra, Bauchi, Cross-River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Ogun, and Plateau, out of which 17 fatalities were recorded in 6 states.
He however explained that the government through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture is making efforts towards control, prevention and total rabies eradication.
She said the government has embarked on annual mass vaccination campaigns against rabies in all the geopolitical zones, while deploying e-data collection tool for real-time data collection from the fields and monitoring of the ongoing vaccinations.
“There is current massive awareness campaigns through print and electronic media, road shows going on and critical stakeholder engagements is also being intensified.”
