Health DG: Rabies outbreak originated from Kalimantan

PETALING JAYA: The rabies outbreak that has claimed four lives in Sarawak in the span of two weeks originated from Kalimantan, Indonesia, according to a lab report.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pix) said this after the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) virology unit carried out DNA sequencing of the rabies virus from specimens obtained from patients diagnosed with the disease.
"The result showed that the virus had the highest genome sequence similarities with the rabies virus strains originating from Kalimantan and Sulawesi.
"These findings showed strong evidence to support that there is an epidemiology link between the reported cases in Serian, Sarawak with Kalimantan," he said in a statement today.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam had, on July 5, said there was a possibility the rabies outbreak was due to infected dogs in Kalimantan.
"The minister did mention the possibility (before), but the lab report strongly supports this claim (that the virus was from Kalimantan)," he said.
Four children in Serian have so far succumbed to the rabies outbreak after being bitten by rabid dogs over the past couple of weeks, with several villages in the district already declared rabies-infected areas.
Noor Hisham added that the Health Ministry has conducted Active Case Detection (ACD) on 36 settlements, 9,830 houses and 37,285 individuals to trace cases of dog bites in the district to date.
"A total of 368 cases of animal bites have been identified in Serian and given treatment. Health education activities related to rabies have also been given to residents in the area," he said, adding that there were no new cases of rabies apart from the four who died.