An ongoing raibies epidemic in Taitung County has been attributed to low vaccination rates among dogs and cats there, which is much lower than the 90 percent required for an area considered at high risk from new infections, the county’s Animal Disease Control Center said.
Since July 2013 — when rabies was rediscovered in Taiwan following a hiatus of 52 years — to Tuesday last week, there were 223 rabies cases in Taitung County, according to the county’s Animal Disease Control Center.
The infected animals included 219 ferret-badgers, two masked palm civets, one dog and one house shrew.
Taitung is the county most affected by the outbreak, center chief Wu Tze-he (吳子和) said yesterday.
This year, Taitung County had seen nine rabies infections among ferret-badgers and two infections in masked palm civets as of Dec. 10, Council of Agriculture statistics show.
As of Tuesday last week, 16,494 dogs and cats had been given rabies vaccinations in Taitung this year, statistics show.
The figure represents a vaccination rate of 57 percent, Wu said.
With such a low vaccination rate, “dogs, cats and people cannot be effectively protected,” he said.
If the vaccination rate among cats and dogs is more than 70 percent, rabies transmissions between people and animals can be prevented, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said.
Rabies infections in animals have been reported in 72 townships in nine counties since 2013.
Under the Statute for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Disease (動物傳染病防治條例), dog and cat owners are obliged to have their pets inoculated against rabies every year. Those who ignore the rule can be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000.
Yesterday, five people were fined NT$30,000 each in Taitung for failing to have their 29 dogs vaccinated, even after the county government notified them of the requirement to do so.
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