Warna Warni Bali |

Ni Komang Erviani and Luh De Suryani ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Denpasar   |  Wed, 02/04/2009 3:57 PM  |  Bali

The Bali administration has allocated an additional Rp 875 million (US$74,500) to purchase almost 7,500 rabies vaccines to prevent any shortage of treatments as the outbreak continues.

Head of the Bali Health Agency Nyoman Sutedja said the Bali Provincial Representatives Council (DPRD) plenary meeting agreed to provide more funding to ensure the virus did not spread any further.

“We will have the money by February,” Sutedja said after the session at the DPRD building in Denpasar on Tuesday.

The funding will come from the provincial budget, Sutedja said, whereas previously vaccines have been financed by the nationalbudget.

Sutedja said as many as six people had died from illnesses related to the rabies outbreak so far. Of them, one was confirmed to be carrying the rabies virus, four were suspected of carrying the virus while lab tests are still being conducted on the final victim to determine the cause of death.

The Health Ministry provided Bali with an additional 800 rabies vaccines Tuesday, boosting the total number of the island to more than 1,000.

Experts however have claimed the Bali administration has not done enough to contain the rabies outbreak, saying their mass vaccination and culling program for infected dogs has not curbed the number of people being bitten and subsequently infected.

Speaking at a discussion at the Udayana University Veterinarian Faculty building Tuesday, experts agreed the vaccination program would have to incorporate Bali’s more rural villages if it were towork effectively. Education campaigns in the villages have been scarce, despite experts claimingthe outbreak originated from arural area.

“The villages should be the nerve center connecting all major efforts identifying and vaccinating dogs,” said I Gede Ngurah Mahardika, spokesperson for Bali’s key rabies task force.

He said completing the vaccination program had been difficult because officials often could not track down dogs for their second set of vaccinations.

The culling program has been largely ineffective as well, with officials blaming difficult terrain and animal rights groups for the overall failure of the practise.

He said the administration must work out a way to involve the public in the vaccination program because people were currently not taking the threat seriously.

Experts have suggested that because punishments handed down to dog owners who do not vaccinate or leash their pets have been so minimal, people are simply not caring.

Wita Wahyu, a spokesperson for the NGO Bali Rabies Forum, said her organization had been offering the administration assistance boosting public participation since the outbreak began.

“The public needs training in how to capture dogs in a hu-mane way for them to be vaccinated. We can provide that training,” she said.

According to data from the Bali Health Agency, only 35 percent of dogs in the Badung regency have been vaccinated, while in Denpasar the mass-vaccination program had only reached 40 percent of the total dog population.

The Yudhistira Swarga Foun-dation, an NGO focusing on animal rights, estimates there are around 540,000 dogs inhabiting the island.