The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday activated a contingency measure that offers National Health Insurance (NHI)-covered rabies vaccines and rabies immunoglobulin to people who have been bitten or scratched by a masked palm civet, or gem-faced civet, in the wake of the nation’s first confirmed rabies infection in the animal.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that under current regulations, people injured by wild animals, regardless of the species, are entitled to a NHI-covered five-dose rabies vaccination on the first, third, seventh, 14th and 28th days after the attack.
However, only those wounded by wild Formosan ferret-badgers and house shrews are eligible for a rabies immunoglobulin shot within a week after being bitten, Chuang said.
“In response to the first reported case of rabies in a masked palm civet on Monday, the centers decided to extend the coverage of NHI-funded rabies immunoglobulin to include people bitten by gem-faced civets to decrease their risk of the rival disease. The new policy is effective immediately,” Chuang said.
The infected masked palm civet was injured when it was discovered by a visitor to Pingtung County’s Eluanbi National Park on Tuesday last week, before being transferred to a veterinary clinic in the county’s Hengchun Township (恆春) on the same day, a press release issued by the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said on Monday.
The civet suffered panic attacks during its stay at the clinic and died on Wednesday last week. It was subsequently sent to the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s lab and tested positive for the rabies virus in two separate screening tests, conducted on Friday and Saturday last week.
The case was confirmed by the Animal Health Research Institute on Monday.
In the past two years, a total of 417 wild Formosan ferret-badgers and one house shrew have been found to be infected with rabies, the bureau said.
Chuang said that between July 21 last year and Monday, 11,419 people had applied for the government-funded rabies vaccine due to injuries by wild animals, including 9,071 being bitten by stray dogs and cats (79.4 percent), 1,213 by rats (10.6 percent) and 62 by masked palm civets (0.5 percent).
In addition, all of the three cases of human rabies reported in Taiwan in the past decade were introduced from overseas, with two from China and one from the Philippines, Chuang added.
“Rabies causes acute inflammation of the brain and is 100 percent fatal in humans,” Chuang said, urging people to refrain from touching or capturing wild animals and to vaccinate their pets against rabies annually.
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