Walikota: It’s drastic but S’wak might not have any choice
KUCHING: If all else fails and rabies continues to harm humans unabated, Sarawak might as well resort to killing all the stray dogs that freely roam the city streets and villages.
This may be a drastic move but if it halts the rising rabies death toll, then Sarawak will have no choice.
Proposing this yesterday, Kota Samarahan Municipal Council chairman (walikota) Datuk Peter Minos said in a worst-case scenario, the state government should follow what the UK and Hongkong governments did in putting a stop to the mad-cow and bird flu outbreaks in recent years.
“Maybe, I say maybe, we will soon be left with no choice but to follow what UK and Hong Kong once did in tackling the mad-cow disease and bird-flu outbreak,” he added when contacted by New Sarawak Tribune yesterday.
In late 1997, in an echo of its drastic response to a deadly flu virus, Hong Kong government ordered every chicken in the territory — about 1.2 million birds — to be killed to stamp out a strain of avian or bird flu.
The government again resorted to culling chickens by the thousands after public health officials detected a new strain of the so-called bird flu in 2016.
In the UK, at the height of the mad-cow disease in the winter of 1993, its government ordered thousands of cows to be culled in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease.
“Hence, if what the state government is doing right now cannot put a stop to the spread of rabies, then it (the government) might just as well resort to doing the drastic action such as killing all the culprits (stray dogs) in the identified rabies-infected areas,” said Minos.
To date, rabies has claimed 15 deaths. The latest victim was a 64-year-old cook, Chung Jee Hiong.
According to latest information on the spread of the rabies disease, only Limbang division in the northern region has been declared as rabies free.
“Now that 15 fellow Sarawakians had already died of rabies, need we wait for more deaths to totally eradicate rabies in Sarawak?” he questioned in his press statement issued yesterday.
“We must get rid of rabies now,” he stressed.
He pointed out that the relevant authorities had worked very hard to eradicate rabies, adding that much time, effort and money had been spent to no avail.
“Ways and tactics have been introduced. But the rabies menace has not stopped. The deaths continue to go on unabated,” he lamented, adding, “The situation is getting scary.”
Continued read on page 3 on our newspaper 13/12/18
