As of December 1, Bali was officially declared ‘rabies-infected’ by the Indonesian Department of Agriculture. According to Ir. Made Badra (the Head of the Animal Husbandry Department of Badung) on a Dewata TV interview on December 8, “The four reported human death cases with a history of dog bite in the Ungasan area were confirmed NOT to have the virus. The dogs who bit these people are still healthy. However, regarding the last reported bite on November 26 in Kedonganan, the person is still alive but the dog died two days later. A sample of the dog’s brain was sent to Maros for testing and it was confirmed to be carrying the virus. This is the only confirmed rabies case in a dog in Bali. There are no confirmed cases in humans so far.” (Rabies can only be positively diagnosed by testing the brain of an infected animal. The test takes about two weeks and the closest lab is in Java. There are no tests currently available to definitively diagnose rabies in a live animal.)
So, one dog with rabies, on the Bukit. But the whole island is considered at risk and is now under official quarantine. The Governor of Bali has issued an additional decree temporarily banning the import or export of dogs, cats, monkeys or other animals until further notice. Obviously, common sense dictates that dogs, cats and monkeys should not be transported around Bali at this time for any reason, particularly not onto or off the Bukit.
For several decades, Bali has been rabies free. Laws are in place to prevent dogs being transported between islands in Indonesia, but these are often disregarded. Fisherman frequently travel with their dogs, and the pet trade makes a nonsense of the inter-island prohibition. The infection was almost certainly started from an illegally transported dog.
The Provincial Government has begun a rabies vaccination program on dogs on the Bukit in cooperation with the Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA) and the Yudisthira Foundation (YF), along with an education program and the euthanization of stray dogs. Twenty thousand animal vaccines have been provided. The Minister of Health confirmed that 400 dosages of human vaccine are available to treat bites inflicted on humans by potentially rabid animals.
The approved international protocol for rabies management is called Ring Vaccination. By creating a perimeter of vaccinated animals in the areas immediately surrounding locations in which rabies has been confirmed, working from the outside in, officials aim to isolate and eventually eliminate and prevent a further spread of the disease. It’s important to vaccinate the potential hosts, not kill or remove them, in order to keep the habitat occupied. Killing all the animals creates a void that will attract more potential carriers of the disease. The second step is to eliminate the threat within the target area by humanely euthanizing sick animals.
The Badung Government has imposed a Ring Vaccination barrier on the Bukit, running from Uluwatu Temple in the south to Tuban in the north. Every day one village is targeted, and vets from the government, BAWA and YF make house-to-house visits vaccinating pet dogs. From December 10 as I write this, BAWA and YF have been given permission to net, vaccinate and release street dogs in the target area; vaccinated dogs can be identified by a special collar. By December 10, about 500 dogs had been vaccinated.
The program will take an estimated three months to cover all the villages on the Bukit before moving up the coast. The Badung government established two rabies centers at the Puskesmas in Jimbaran and Ungasan, and there is a restriction on moving animals in or out of Badung.
The government has been culling street dogs on the Bukit with a combination of darted anesthetic and strychnine. Neither BAWA nor YF will euthanize healthy dogs.
Culling, or killing healthy animals, has never been effective in preventing the spread of rabies. Experts in animal epidemics have reported since 1973 that widespread culling neither controls or eradicates the virus. A classic example of this is the case of the rabies epidemic in Flores. In 1997 fishermen brought 3 infected dogs from Sumbawa to Flores and within months the previously rabies-free island was in the throes of an epidemic. In 1998 an emergency decision was made in East Flores district, the original site, to kill most if not all the dogs in the district. Although 70% of all dogs in East Flores and almost 50% of dogs on the whole of Flores were subsequently killed, rabies continued to spread through the island. Over 113 people died in the first 5 years of the epidemic, which has still not been contained. This occurrence indicates that even massive culling of the dog population, without an intensive vaccination campaign of the survivors, will not arrest an outbreak even if it occurs on a small island. Similar results have been recorded in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and other countries where officials have tried vainly to eradicate rabies by culling alone.
The government initially directed the Balinese to kill all street dogs and has not yet retracted this directive. The dangers associated with inexperienced people attempting to kill potentially rabid animals is high. Disturbing a sick animal often makes it more aggressive and likely to bite. Not only might people be exposed to the disease while handling the animal, but disposing of the carcasses incorrectly could further spread the virus (the remains need to be buried six feet deep or incinerated).
Mark Jones, A English vet and animal welfare director for Animals Asia Foundation writes, “Mass killing of street dogs is a knee-jerk reaction to outbreaks, and one that has long been discredited as a method of rabies control by international organizations including the WHO. The only effective way of controlling rabies is through carefully planned trap/neuter/releas schemes combined with vaccination. If properly conducted, this will stabilize dog populations and stop the spread of rabies through those populations; healthy vaccinated dog populations keep sick or rabid dogs away from their areas. Such programs have been instrumental in eliminating rabies from many parts of the world.” The Badung government is not neutering the stray dogs on the Bukit, but has been euthanizing them.
“Rabies could be wiped out across the world in a decade if vaccinations are carried out on at least 70% of domestic dogs, ” states staff of the Royal Dick Veterinary School at Edinburgh University in Scotland, cofounders of the Alliance for Rabies Control. Experts have recognized for decades that rabies is wholly eradicable from all species except bats through targeted mass immunization. “The tools for effective rabies control are available. What is lacking is the motivation, commitment and resources to tackle the disease effectively,” the Alliance for Rabies Control declared. Mass vaccination of 70% of domestic dogs and sterilizing street dogs provides the most cost-effective and efficient strategy for controlling canine rabies and hence transmission from dogs to humans.
“Sterilization is the key in Bali as it prevents dogs from wandering,” states a BAWA staff member. “BAWA has a free sterilization program operating from its mobile clinic, but we urgently need support to help to pay for this critical program, especially now.” To help, visit www.bawabali.com
Because Bali was until weeks ago considered rabies free, vaccination for our dogs was not available. It’s still unclear how much vaccine will be offered. The best way to protect your pets is to keep them securely in your yard where they can’t mix with other unvaccinated dogs. This is proving a challenge to me as my street dog Hamish can leap like a deer and clears two-metre walls from a standing start. We’ve now installed fences on top of the walls. He spent the whole day yesterday prowling the perimeter, testing every metre to see if he could get over or through it. So far, so good.
The virus is passed through the saliva of an infected animal (via a bite or lick on broken skin), so this domestic quarantine is not only effective against infection but will also protect your pet against poisoning or other uninformed attempts to control rabies through culling.
If you see an animal you think might be rabid, do not approach or provoke it. Call BAWA at (0361) 981 490 or your local vet or animal husbandry department. And don’t panic.
