Sorsogon Rabies Program intensified

SORSOGON CITY, July 24 (PIA) – The Provincial Government of Sorsogon in partnership with the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) will be conducting consecutive activities on July 25 – 26, 2013 as part of its strategy in the elimination of animal and human rabies under the Sorsogon Rabies Program (SRP).

On July 25, some 20 media practitioners are expected to attend a Media Advocacy Mentorship (MAM) program to be held at Casa Dominga in Bgy. Balogo, Sorsogon City, from 9:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.  

The program is an integral part of the GARC Advocacy, Communication, and Education (ACE) campaign whose objective is to engage community media practitioners and educate and empower them on rabies prevention and elimination.

                 

The activity is also designed to facilitate the ability of media practitioners to process the more technical information of the components of the SRP and translate these into audience/reader-friendly bites. These include responsible pet ownership, socio-cultural changes towards disease elimination, and the most basic dog-bite emergency procedures that some dog-owners lack knowledge of.

Resource speakers to the program include GARC Communication Officer Dane Medina and College of Development Communication Assistant Professor Sherwin Joseph Felicidario of the University of the Philippines-Los Banos in laguna, who will address the role of communicators and the importance of effectively communicating public health messages and knowledge enhancement on science reporting/writing, among others.

On July 26, at the same venue, Provincial Veterinarian Dr. Enrique Espiritu and Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liduvina Dorion, the lead contact persons on canine and human rabies prevention and eradication, respectively, will be presenting the program implementation review to all municipal agricultural/health officers of the province.

The SRP was launched on March 05, 2013 in Sorsogon. Already more than 300 participants including Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) members were trained to vaccinate and organize Barangay Bantay-Rabies Committees.

A Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) Survey was likewise conducted from February to March this year, wherein vaccination kits and other paraphernalia were distributed to participants of the vaccinators’ training and orientation.

An information campaign is also continuously pushed in tri-media to promote the program. Most importantly, massive dog vaccinations have been implemented province-wide. As of press time, nine municipalities have already been covered by the campaign. (MFDeniega, PVO/ BARecebido, PIA Sorsogon)