Digital desk, Colombo. Sri Lanka is at risk of a rapid spread of rabies due to a lack of vaccinations. A health official said Wednesday that rabies could spread rapidly due to the lack of a vaccine.
There were no vaccines in storage units in Kandy, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Colombo and Gampaha districts, LD Kithasiri, Director of Public Health Veterinary Services, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
Kithasiri said 28 people had died of rabies last year and 17 of them had contracted the disease. He said that we can run the vaccination program until February using the remaining vaccine in other regional storage units. Vaccination will not continue beyond that.
He said that in 2022, he vaccinated one lakh of dogs and sterilized 40,000 female dogs. There’s no shortage of vaccines for hospitalized people, he adds, but that could change quickly if rabies spreads among dogs.
According to WHO data, Sri Lanka achieved a successful reduction in human rabies deaths from 377 in the mid-1970s to 31 in 2021 thanks to its successful vaccination campaign.
IANS
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