Sorsogon readies for Global Alliance for Rabies Control program implementation

By Irma A. Guhit

SORSOGON CITY, Jan. 30 (PIA)…..”Sorsogon province is one of the pilot provinces here in the Philippines under the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) program and eventually this first month of February everything is systems go,” Dr. Enrique Espiritu, provincial veterinary officer here disclosed.

Sorsogon will be receiving the $300,000 fund assistance from GARC divided into $100.000 per year, the program to run for three years for the total control of rabies here in the province.

Espiritu said that all the mechanisms and the systems to be followed to implement under the program has been approved by GARC and the proper component of the provincial government satisfied as required by the funding agency together with the coordination and assistance of different agencies who will implement the program.

Dubbed as Communities Against Rabies Exposure (CARE), the project will primarily start with the massive information education campaign to provide people the knowledge that rabies is a life-threatening risk for people living in poverty across Africa and Asia.

GARC strives to free people and animals from the dreaded threat and being the world’s leading organization working towards the global control of rabies, it designs and runs rabies control projects to help communities understand the risk of rabies by giving knowledge and skills to combat the disease in a sustainable manner.

Here in the Philippines, Bohol has implemented the program and now considered as one of the best implementor in the country against rabies.  

“Now Sorsogon has been identified here in the region as the second highest province with 38 positive cases in 1999 based on the monitoring system of GARC and the abrupt decrease for the succeeding years with only two incidence provided the agency the need to control it ultimately.

 The program will provide the mass dog vaccination to control rabies in the most effective way and sustain the interventions aimed at humans only and that this rabies control program can serve as the powerful tool models for resource-poor countries to finance and deliver other sustainable health programs,”Espiritu said.

The Philippines meanwhile is among the top 10 countries for rabies deaths worldwide as reported by GARC. (IAG/PIA-SORSOGON)