A RESOLUTION to investigate the government’s rabies control program has been filed at the House of Representatives, noting a 37% surge in deaths due to rabies this year.
“The NRPCP (National Rabies Prevention and Control Program) has missed its targets to eliminate human rabies by 2020 and to declare the Philippines rabies-free by 2022, despite ample funding of between P500 million to P900 million every year,” Quezon City Rep. Marvin C. Rillo, who filed House Resolution 462, said in a statement on Sunday.
“We want the NRPCP’s failure investigated, with a view to recommending stronger corrective measures to finally eliminate human deaths from rabies in the country,” he added.
Rabies is a vaccine-preventable disease mostly transmitted through an animal bite.
The NRPCP was established under the Anti-Rabies Law of 2007 to prevent and control rabies infection by providing and promoting accessible vaccines and rabies education and awareness to the public.
It also seeks to promote responsible pet ownership.
The lawmaker cited data from the Health department showing that 322 Filipinos died due to rabies from January to Nov. 5 this year, a jump from the 235 in the same period in 2021.
Department of Health records also showed that rabies infections had a case fatality rate of 100%, mostly caused by unvaccinated dogs.
The World Health Organization also considers rabies a deadly disease such that “once clinical symptoms appear in humans, rabies is virtually 100% fatal.”
Mr. Rillo also cited that state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) paid P180 million for animal bite treatment claims in 2021, up by 22% from P148 million the previous year.
From January to June, Philhealth spent P92.6 million to pay for 32,598 claims. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan
