Bali runs out of anti-rabies vaccine for dogs

The provincial husbandry office has been called on to procure more anti-rabies vaccines for the third stage of its massive vaccination program, which started on March 27, as many field officers have run out of supplies, forcing them to halt the program.

I Wayan Mudiarta, operational manager of Yudisthira Swarga Fundation, told Bali Daily on Saturday that his team had inoculated as many as 10,700 dogs since the mass-vaccination program started in March.

“Our team was forced to stop their vaccinations on April 28, because we had not received additional anti-rabies vaccines from the husbandry office,” Mudiarta said.

Yudisthira Swarga Foundation is one of the island’s nonprofit organizations that has been working together with Bali provincial and Denpasar administrations to carry out a mass vaccination program.

In this third stage of the vaccination program, the government’s target was to inoculate up to 375,000 domestic and stray dogs. The administration claimed that around 150,000 dogs had already been vaccinated.

Under the joint cooperation, the Foundation, which promotes animal welfare, has to implement mass-vaccinations in villages within South Denpasar and West Denpasar.

“We have been vaccinating half of the dog populations in our target areas and we need more anti-rabies vaccine to complete our job,” explained Mudiarta.

He continued saying that the slow procurement of the vaccine had obviously hindered the implementation of the program. “The officials could only say they had no stocks and did not elaborate as to why,” he complained.

“It was the administration which set the target to finish the mass vaccination by May 25. How can we achieve the target, if they [the administration] lack the commitment to provide us with sufficient anti-rabies vaccines,” he added.

Mudiarta was expecting the administration to act soon. “This mass anti-rabies vaccination program is crucial to eliminate rabies in Bali,” he said.

The Bali administration had previously boasted it would eradicate rabies by 2012, however, it has failed to do so as the number of rabies cases is now rising again. At least three people have died of rabies-related diseases up to April 2012. Bali Husbandry Agency head, I Putu Sumantra, strongly denied the accusation that the office had no anti-rabies vaccine stock.

“We still have 10,000 doses of anti-rabies vaccines,” he said.

Sumantra admitted that there was an administrative problem for the procurement of anti-rabies vaccines because of inaccurate financial and audit reports.

“The inspectorate general at the Agriculture Ministry has found several mistakes in the previous procurements of anti-rabies vaccines. We have to make some evaluations and adjustments,” he acknowledged.

Procurement of the anti-rabies vaccine for the third mass vaccination program is funded from
the state budget. The provincial and central government have allocated Rp 13.8 billion (US$1.49 million) for the entire mass vaccination program.

“To speed up supply, we will borrow the vaccines from the central government.”

Previously, foreign donor agencies and organizations, such as AusAID, USAID and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), had provided funds for the island’s anti-rabies vaccinations. In the first and second mass vaccination program last year, the government claimed it had vaccinated 70 percent of the dog population on the island.