According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, about half the world population is said to be living in territories or countries where rabies is prevalent. Annually about 50,000 people are said to have died due to rabies infection in these countries. The rabies virus, like many other pathogenic viruses, is a threat to human civilisation.

The recent outbreak of rabies virus in dogs in the states of Perlis, Kedah and Penang in Malaysia has taken many zoonotic experts by surprise. Malaysian veterinary authorities are renowned in the world for their stringent veterinary border surveillance and quarantine procedures.

There had been isolated reports of rabies infection in stray dogs in the northern states of Perlis and Kedah in the past, however, the veterinary authorities have managed to stop its spread to the other states remarkably well.

There is a rabies buffer zone between Malaysian and the Thai border in the north to prevent the spread of rabies into the country. If the rabies infection originated from Thailand, it should have been detected by our rabies surveillance team .

If the infection is from Thailand, how is that the our veterinary authorities were not able to detect the rabies infection? If our borders are that porous as claimed by the deputy director-general of the Veterinary Services Department, then we should have been having one too many outbreaks of rabies in not only in the northern states but also in other states like Kelantan, too.

Let’s face the fact that rabies is prevalent at the Thailand and that we have failed in detecting and controlling the spread of the rabies infection. If we can prevent the disease from spreading out of the northern states for more than 40 years, how is that we are not able to stop its spread now?

It is understandable if rabies is spread by vectors, but it’s not. I am disappointed and sad to note that our once-highly-acclaimed border veterinary zoonotic disease surveillance system has somewhat not been able to meet the modern challenges. There may be several reasons to this sorry state of affairs and I hope the authorities concerned will take note of it and immediately take remedial measures.

In the meanwhile, the authorities should not take the easy way out to put down all the dogs on the street to sleep due to the rabies outbreak. Rabies is not only spread by dogs, there other mammals that can equally spread the disease, including cats. In fact cats are known to carry a highly infectious and dangerous zoonotic parasite referred to as toxoplasmosis that can cause abortions in pregnant mothers in their early pregnancy.

There is ample of scientific and medical evidence to indicate that that there are growing number of early foetal abortions in mothers due to this cat parasite infection in mothers. Do we go about killing all these stray cats in these areas?

However, we are all cool about the cat parasite and its effects on pregnant women but we are bent on creating unnecessary fear and panic in the public on the sudden and questionable rabies outbreak in the public to a point that some people are ill-treating these animals.I have been told that some irresponsible and frightened pet owners are abandoning their pets on the street now.

For the information of the authorities, WHO has recommended that anti-rabies vaccination of pet dogs including strays is the best approach in tackling the rabies outbreak problem and I appeal to the authorities to adhere to this advise and work closely with the animal welfare NGOs, rather than culling the innocent poor creatures.

Mass culling of stray dogs, according to WHO findings, has not been effective. Apparently it only upsets the community who believe that the sanctity of all life forms ought to respected by mankind.

Been an ardent animal lover, it saddens me to see hundreds of poor dogs being put to sleep due to this fear of rabies outbreak. There is not one case of human death so far due to rabies despite reports of several people being bitten by suspected rabies dogs. This itself warrants a thorough re-examination on the kind of rabies diagnosis tests being conducted by our labs.

Have the authorities followed the standard WHO laboratory rabies testing protocol before confirming it is rabies? Zoonotic diseases experts that I have consulted are puzzled as to why, despite the fact that more than 30 people who have been said to be bitten by suspected rabies infected dogs, not even one of these victims have come down with the disease?

Doubts on validity of rabies test

This situation has raised doubts on the validity of the rabies test conducted locally. It must be pointed out that during the peak of the Nipah disease outbreak in the pigs several years ago in the country, blood tests were conducted on several dogs kept in an animal welfare home.

Several dogs were was found to be positive for the Nipah virus. A decision was made then to safeguard the workers in the animal home to cull all the dogs that were positive for Nipah virus. However, several weeks later it was revealed that it was not the Nipah virus but another harmless virus that shares an almost similar gene make-up to the Nipah virus.

I, too, find it rather odd for the rabies virus to suddenly jump into a remote part of Penang island unless someone parachuted an infected animal into the island.

Whatever it is, I stand firmly with the authorities to safeguard the well-being and health of the public. However, being an ardent animal lover, I appeal to the authorities concerned to respect the sanctity of all life forms and look into humane ways to handle the current rabies outbreak .

The authorities should consider WHO’s recommendation to immunise stray dogs instead of putting them to sleep. The authorities should review the rabies surveillance programme as it is obvious that lapses in this surveillance programme has been the root cause of the outbreak.

The authorities should also look seriously into the root causes of this unprecedented rabies outbreak which is threatening to spread into other states. I will not be surprised if Perak and Selangor are declared as rabies infected states soon, going by the way this outbreak has been handled from day one. I do not wish to elaborate on this further as I find the mode of the rabies spreads from Perlis to Penang bizarre.

The authorities should investigate how the disease spread into Penang so fast and why preventions methods failed. A full investigation and post-mortem on the outbreak of rabies should be conducted by the authorities to ensure that it does not recur.

If our surveillance and control strategies are ineffective and unreliable to a point that we have rabies threatening the nation it’s high time a major revamp in the surveillance and diseases control division in the relevant ministries. Otherwise there is no guarantee that the deadly Nipah virus that killed more than 110 people and maimed many more will not recur.