Article About Bali Dogs

[lumumba]

Article from today's Jakarta Post
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Badung culls suspect rabid dogs, after four deaths
Andra Wisnu , The Jakarta Post , Uluwatu | Fri, 11/28/2008 10:54 AM | Bali
The Badung regency culled 11 reportedly rabid dogs from the village of Ungasan in Uluwatu district, Bali on Thursday after two adults and two children in the area who were bitten died of undetermined causes.

Officials from the animal husbandry agency and representatives from the Yudisthira Swarga Foundation for wild dog welfare captured the animals, extracted cranial fluids for testing, then administered lethal injections to prevent a possible outbreak. The dogs were then buried.
Ungasan village chief and agency official, Wayan Suarkana, said most of the dogs culled were wild, though some belonged to villagers who were willing to hand over their pets.

He said it would take a few days to determine whether the culled dogs had rabies.
Suarkana said the agency might decide to cull more dogs in the village before waiting for lab results on the dogs' cranial fluids.
"It's hard to tell whether the disease is actually here or whether the dogs we culled today have rabies, but we just can't take the risk," he said.

This is the first case of mass culling of reportedly rabid canines. Bali has been rabies free for several decades, but the number of deaths forced the agency to act quickly, Suarkana said
In September this year dogs bit Made Artana, 32, and Ketut Wirata, 28. Two months later they both died, with officials believing the cause to be rabies. Artana died on Nov. 14 at Kasih Ibu Hospital in Badung; Wirata died on Nov. 23 at Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar.
Suarkana declined to identify the two toddlers, though their deaths were confirmed to have occurred "recently".

"They died of unknown causes, but they may have contracted rabies. They were bitten before they died," Suarkana said.
Sixteen other villagers have also been bitten, though none of them have complained of illness. Village records record 170 families living there.
Balinese tend to let wild dogs roam free and domesticated dogs are rarely kept on a leash.
In a separate interview, Tinneke Indrajaya from the Bali Animal Welfare Association said it would be a major concern if the dogs were infected with rabies because no vaccine for the disease is stored on the island.
"Bali has been free of rabies for decades, we haven't had any need for a vaccine in the island.

"But there's no need for panic, nothing's been confirmed yet," she said.

Rabies is a disease that causes acute inflammation in the brain. The disease can be carried by dogs, monkeys and bats, among other mammals.
A bite from an infected animal is fatal for humans if left untreated. However, immediate immunization is 100 percent effective in preventing the onset of the disease. There has been 31,000 deaths in Asia from rabies according to a 2006 report from the World Health Organization.
I do love dogs very much and in my life I had about 5, all from puppies.

I think the one running around in Bali should be put down, especially the one on the beach of Kuta. When we see one we always detour but most of the times he will follow and get very close to our legs…………who knows what could happen.
They also look very mingy and sick. :oops:

[Bert Vierstra]

If you quote an article, please provide a link to the original :!:

[lumumba]

LINK TO THE ORIGINAL

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008 ... eaths.html

[Roy]

A simple cranial autopsy on the four suspected victims would have easily proven if they died from rabies.

[tintin]

The incubation of rabies by an animal, in this case a dog, could be a long as 6 months. During this period, it is not contagious, as it cannot infect another being until the virus has reached the dog's brain, where it multiplies and then travels to the dog's salivary glands. This is why rabies is transmitted through a bite.

However, once the virus has reached the animal's brain, the animal will die within 3 to 5 days. Since a bite victim of a rabid animal must start the series of anti-rabies shots within THREE days of the bite, the series of shots should be started as soon as possible within those 3 days. If not, forget it, you're history. One stops the series of shots (which takes place over a one month period, administered on days 0, 3, 7, 14, and 28), if the suspected animal survives its 10-day quarantine.

So, if the suspected rabid dogs were captured, the protocol called for a quarantine of the animals of 10 days. If after that time, the animals were behaving "normally," it means they were not infected with the rabies virus (one cannot miss the symptoms of an infected animal).

It looks as the Yudisthira Swarga Foundation, in Bali, had a knee-jerk reaction, and its directors need to go back to school. The fact that the suspected dogs were still alive 2 months after having bitten these 2 poor guys, back in September, indicates that the dogs couldn't possibly have been infected with rabies. Elementary, my dear Watson… :)

[mimpimanis]

I didn't realise when I read this the first time that it is right on our doorstep.

17 dogs have been tested positive so far.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2...dog-bites.html

[tintin]

Mimpimanis,

Could you be more explicit? How were the dogs tested? 17 dogs infected and nobody saw them behaving like rabid dogs!!! Like I wrote above, a dog will be contagious with the virus in its brain for 3 to 5 days, and then it will die. There must have been many dead dogs in your neighborhood, bukan? Allow me to be skeptical.

[Sanurian]

...17 dogs have been tested positive so far...

That's a frightening result, if, in fact, it's true. I hope not.

A lot of the time, Indonesian officials and media have a tendency to get things wildly wrong. I hope this is not one of them.

I find it difficult to believe statements that "Bali has been free of rabies for decades". Given the languorous approach by authorities in all kinds of areas, it's hard to swallow. Some sceptics have suggested that rabies is still here and the reason we don't hear about it is because it might harm tourist numbers. I don't know about that, but it wouldn't surprise me.

These current reports seem to be serious. They've been splashed around in media like The Jakarta Post. The Uluwatu region is about as far south in Bali as you can go. If there are positively tested rabid dogs down there, what about the other more populated areas of Bali? How can/could they be unaffected?

If nothing else, hopefully, news like this will bring into focus the issue of having an uncontrolled, unmonitored, uncared-for, and increasingly large population of dogs on Bali.

You don't have to bitten by an animal carrying the rabies virus to contract it. The virus is transmitted through saliva. A casual lick can do the job if you have any broken skin. An infected animal may not show any obvious symptoms but can give you the lick of an excruciatingly painful death. Unless you can get competent medical help super fast.

I read a couple of days ago that Bali doesn't have stocks of rabies vaccine because "Bali doesn't have rabies". Well, we'll see soon...

:(

[tintin]

Come on, you guys (and gals), this is not a question of Black or White Magic, this is a scientific question, which has been studied scientifically for more than two centuries.

Back this past April, I personally experienced a (partial) rabies treatment, which, by the way, is not the old type that Louis Pasteur had developed. It's now almost painless. And I wrote "patial" because it was cut short after 10 days only (it usually lasts one month), when the doctor asked me how the animal (a feral cat, in this instance) was behaving. Since I reported that the cat was behaving "normally," i.e. not showing signs of being infected, the doctor stopped the shots. Believe me, I had a long discussion with this Emergencies Room doctor and did very fast lot of reading on the subject.

The animal's symptoms usually develop between 20 and 60 days after its exposure, but can take as long as 5 - 6 months. Why so long? It depends where the virus was introduced in the animal. The virus, once injected, moves very slowly along the animal's nervous system to its brain. Therefore, if the rabid bite occurred on the animal's tail, it can take that long to reach its brain. During this incubation period, the animal is not contagious.

How does a rabid animal behave? It can become aggressive and vicious (who wouldn't be?), and very sensitive to being touched and other kinds of stimulation. . This is the kind most usually associated with mad dogs. In other cases, the animal becomes lethargic and weak, and it cannot raise its head or make sounds because its throat and neck muscles are paralyzed. In both kinds of animal rabies, death occurs, usually from respiratory failure, within 3 – 5 days after the first symptoms appear.

It is only during this short period that the animal can pass the virus, which it has "cultivated" in its salivary glands, through a bite. Of course, if it were to lick someone at a place where that "someone" had an opened wound, it would pass on the virus. But I doubt very much that a rabid animal is in a "licking mood."

In the USA, one of the most likely animals to pass the rabies virus is the bat. As a matter of fact, during the last 11 years, the total human rabies deaths have averaged 2.9/ year, and 24 (75%) of 32 deaths were due to bat rabis variant, and their victims had been unaware of having being beaten. In Asia, Central and South America, dogs are the principal cause of rabid deaths.

Rabies in Bali would developed as rabies develops in animals all over the world, so I doubt very much that what has been reported by the Indonesian "authorities is indeed "rabies." There is only one way to test an animal for rabies, and it's post-mortem, collecting some of its brain tissues for analysis.

PS. Please, do not mistake "rabies" for "rabbis," as the Emergencies Room secretary wrote on the hospital form as a cause for my coming to the Emergencies (I did not have the guts to correct her). :lol: :lol:

[mimpimanis]

Tintin wrote

There is only one way to test an animal for rabies, and it's post-mortem, collecting some of its brain tissues for analysis.

However the Jakarta Post says

As of Friday, 17 wild and domesticated dogs had been tested positively for the disease and been put down using lethal injection. In the test, a small amount of the animal's brain fluid is extracted under anesthetic.

Sorry, I quoted the link to the full article rather than linking it before. Here it is again.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2...dog-bites.html

I have to say on the school run today there are a lot less dogs on the street than usual.