ORMOC CITY,
Leyte, May 3 (PNA) -– The city health office (CHO) here has treated 631 dog
bite victims this year as of last week.
Of this
number, 539 were given post exposure treatment (PET) and 92 administered with
rabies immunoglobulin (RIG). Last year, CHO treated 1,905 victims, 1,663 of
whom were given PET and 157 with RIG.
Rabies
control program coordinator Elsie Jaca provided these figures to debunk claims
that the CHO doesn’t have anti-rabies vaccines to give to dog bite victims. She
admitted though that the vaccines are limited and patients will have to
purchase their own when supply runs out.
The people
should know that Ormoc CHO is an Animal Bite Treatment Center (ABTC), Jaca
said. The Department of Health (DOH) chose Ormoc as ABTC, considering it is the
only local government unit in Region 8 and one of the few in the Visayas that
has its own annual operational plan and regular budget on rabies control.
This is
complemented by the dog vaccination program of the city veterinary office. Last
year, the office vaccinated 23,007 canines. As of March 31 this year, it has
vaccinated 8,592 dogs. These best practices made Ormoc a consistent best
performer in DOH’s rabies control program.
Unlike
Tacloban which has five ABTCs (located at its City Health Unit, City Hospital,
Leyte Provincial Hospital, Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center and Divine
Word Hospital), Ormoc’s ABTC is a stand-alone that caters not only to city
residents but to people from the entire Leyte west coast as well.
Last year,
20 percent or 392 of the 1,951 patients served by the Ormoc ABTC came from
other towns. As of April 26 this year, 14 percent or 90 of the 629 patients are
non-Ormoc resident.
Even medical
personnel from Baybay City come here to seek treatment while residents of
Maasin, Southern Leyte run to Ormoc when its ABTC there runs out of vaccines.
Jaca says
this is one of the reasons why Ormoc ABTC’s vaccines are depleted.
In 2015 for
instance, they had 650 vials of Verorub vaccine (600 bought by the city
government for PHP1.05 million good for two quarters and 50 from DOH). In the
first quarter alone however, there were 379 patients from Ormoc that required
758 vials (considering that one patient needs two vials of Verorub). This
rendered the supply short of 108 vials, forcing 54 patients to buy their own medicines.
Ormoc ABTC
also had 25 vials of Rabipur that same quarter good for 25 patients. However,
there were 74 patients from other places, forcing 49 of them to buy their own
medicines. It is easy to tell the city government to increase allocation for the
program, Jaca points out, but the truth is that the vaccines don’t come cheap.
Treatment
for a category 1 or simple bite costs PHP500-1,000. A category 2 bite (wherein
blood oozes out) costs PHP3,000-5,000. For category 3 (head or neck bite),
treatment could fetch PHP12,000-PHP30,000.
If all the
1,951 patients served by Ormoc ABTC last year happened to fall under category
3, the city will have to spend PHP23,412,000 for their treatment.
acute respiratory infection, dental and
nutrition. Its PHP1.43-million budget this year represents eight percent of the
PHP19.53 million allocations for all 20 programs. (PNA)
LAP/SQM/FELIX N. CODILLA/EGR
LAP/SQM/FELIX N. CODILLA/EGR
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