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WHO aids Bohol anti-rabies program with P1.1M fund

Written by anyajulia on 12 September 2008

BOHOL rabies prevention program gets a longer leash with the World Health Organization (WHO) pitching in to help prop up the local initiative to eradicate the threat.

Provincial Veterinarian Stella Marie Lapiz bared this Wednesday as her update to members of the Bohol Rabies Prevention and Eradication Council during a meeting at the Mansion.

This she also gave to the delight of the Bohol Rabies Prevention and Eradication Council (BRPEC) members who have labored for setting up the mechanism for the program to be unleashed.

Bohol has topped Central Visayas in human and animal rabies cases, causing undue threat to the thriving tourism industry here.

In her report Wednesday, Dr. Lapiz said WHO has granted Bohol P1.1M in year-long fund to aid in helping attain the goal of making Bohol rabies free by 2010.

WHO also understood that Bohol Capitol puts up a counterpart fund of P1.5M, Dr. Lapiz shared.

The fund is available from August 2008 to July 2009, said Dr. Soe Nyunt-U, WHO representative in the Philippines, in a letter sent to Dr. Lapiz sated August 26, 2008.

This fund is different from the bulk of P7M apportioned for Bohol by the Alliance for Rabies Control (ARC), which Dr. Lapiz earlier bared to the media.

The ARC fund is for piloting initiatives in a province-wide anti-rabies campaign to help Bohol anti-rabies and responsible pet owner advocates document a collaborative effort.

The end goal is for ARC to create a template for future support program in their rabies elimination campaign in other countries, Dr. Stella Marie Lapiz then said.

One of the terms of reference for the WHO fund however includes institutionalization of Barangay rabies watchers through a barangay resolution or ordinance.

To Dr. Lapiz and BRPEC members, this is not much of a problem as even before the funding assistance came, the Bantay Rabies sa Barangay (BRBs), or roughly translated as the barangay rabies watchers have been set up in earlier initiatives.

Moreover, another term asks Bohol, who will manage the fund to improve the capacity of barangays in the implementation of different services and activities for developing the project in Bohol.

The Bohol anti-rab program has been incorporating activities to the same effect, Dr. Lapiz assured.

A third reference, the fund should help set up the development of information materials and a speaker’s bureau for the program.

Over this, Dr, Lapiz and the council members are confident this is not a big problem for the Bohol program, with the initial anti-rabies plan covering all quarters to make it thorough.

Another reference is for the establishment of a dog database at the barangay levels, the development and implementation of a reporting, recording, monitoring and evaluation tools for the use of barangays as well as a regular system for reports submission, these too have been responded in the initial province-wide plan.

The fund also obliges Bohol to submit inception reports, initial progress reports and a final report in two weeks after the end of the implementation. (rachiu/PIA)

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