City vet’s goal: Educate people about rabies

CEBU, Philippines - Officer-in-charge city veterinarian Dr. Pilar Romero is conducting seminars in Cebu City barangays in order to educate people on rabies.

Dr. Romero said she regularly visits each barangay in the city to give advices to residents who own some dogs.

The seminar is still ongoing for this year to teach people on how to take care of the dogs and in order to avoid increasing cases of rabies, she said.

“Maguol gyud ko kung makakita ko og iro nga naay rabies kay surely amu gyud silang patyon kay ilang brain gikaon naman na sa virus and also kinahanglan namong buhaton arun ma-avoid ang pag-spread sa rabies ngadto sa mga animals,” she explained.

A dog was positive of rabies in Kalunasan for the month of April while for March, there were two recorded cases in Punta Princesa.

For the month of February there were also two cases in Capitol Site and Duljo Fatima while for January, there were two animals that tested positive for rabies in Tisa.

No case was reported this month so far.

Dr. Pilar is hoping the city will continuously be declared rabies-free.

Apart from possibly contacting rabies to people, she said the stray dogs sometimes lead to road traffic accidents causing death and injury to humans.

She also said that one female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in just six years while cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 kittens in seven years.

Despite of that, she was also glad that for this year, no human was tested positive for rabies. —, (FREEMAN)