National Steering Committee for Elimination of Rabies to be established
 

by Bharatha Malawaraarachchi

The Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry has decided to establish a National Steering Committee for the Elimination of Rabies for which Cabinet approval has already been given, a Ministry spokesman told the Daily News yesterday.

This Steering Committee chaired by the Health Ministry Secretary will lay the policy guidelines to advise the Director General of Health Services, in the implementation of the National Policy and the National Action plan and associated issues.

Amongst the issues identified are to stop the indiscriminate killing of stray dogs as a strategy to control birth population, explore the possibility of finding avenues to shelter stray dogs and introducing a systematic anti-rabies immunisation programme of 8 per cent of all dogs within the next two years.

The Committee will also focus on raising community awareness, dog licencing and breeder licencing to be affectively imposed. The Steering Committee comprises the Director General of Health Services, Deputy Director General(Public Health Services), Director (Public Health Veterinary Services), a representative from the Animal Health Husbandry Department, the Local Government Ministry and Municipal Commissioners or representatives from the Municipal Councils in Colombo, Galle and Kandy.

It will also include one representative each from the major animal welfare NGOs, WHO Colombo office, Sri Lanka Veterinary Association and Faculty of veterinary science, Peradeniya.

In his Cabinet Memorandum, Minister de Silva has stated that the methods of elimination of dogs adopted in the past have been considered by interested animal welfare parties as most inhuman.

"Evidence indicates that elimination of stray dogs from a habitat is usually followed by other stray dogs replacing them in the same habitat maintaining the threat of Rabies spread at the same level."

The Minister had stressed that "catch and kill" methods adopted by the Health and Municipal Authorities have proven to be ineffective for the control of Rabies."The cost, effective approach of controlling the dog population such as sterilisation and use of injectable birth control preparation is considered and accepted by the world community at large.

He noted that such programmes need to be strengthened by public education to make people be more responsible in the dog raising practices and to ensure that the pet dogs are cared for and looked after in the proper manner.

"In order to achieve this, I have initiated dialogue with different stake-holders under the chairmanship of former Health Minister Siva Obeysekera to formulate a national policy framework for the control and elimination of Rabies in Sri Lanka." the Minister added.