Even as the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry's An­ti-Ra­bies Unit con­tin­ues vac­ci­nat­ing farm­ers and live­stock to curb the cur­rent ra­bies out­break in Bar­rack­pore, con­cerns have been raised about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the virus be­ing trans­mit­ted to hu­mans through stray dogs or pets.

Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Food & Agri­cul­ture at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, Dr Mark Wud­di­vi­ra con­firmed that the ra­bies virus is zoonot­ic, mean­ing it can be nat­u­ral­ly trans­mis­si­ble from ver­te­brate an­i­mals to hu­mans. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Wud­di­vi­ra said al­though bats play an im­por­tant role in the ecosys­tem, they are al­so vec­tors to dis­eases. 

"The usu­al vec­tors for ra­bies are bats. Fox­es and racoons are al­so re­port­ed to be vec­tors. The out­break in Bar­rack­pore is due to bats trans­mit­ting the virus to cat­tle by their in­fect­ed sali­va and

 bites," Dr Wud­di­vi­ra said.

He added, " Ra­bies is trans­mis­si­ble be­tween species. It is al­so zoonot­ic so in­fect­ed dogs can spread to their own­ers or even strangers through in­fect­ed sali­va or bites."

He not­ed that vac­ci­na­tion was im­por­tant, not­ing that ra­bies vac­cines are avail­able for hu­mans and some live­stock.

Mean­while, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein says the Min­istry has been man­ag­ing the ra­bies out­break.

He said up to 31 March, a to­tal of 1,881 an­i­mals were vac­ci­nat­ed in­clud­ing 786 cat­tle, 659 sheep, 403 goats, and 33 buf­fa­lo.

The Min­is­ter said al­though the zoonot­ic na­ture of ra­bies gives the im­pres­sion that T&T has ca­nine ra­bies, this is not the case.

 "It is true that a dog can pos­si­bly get ra­bies from a bat or ra­bid cow, if bit­ten or ex­posed. How­ev­er, a sus­tained dog to dog trans­mis­sion, due to spillover of virus from the bat pop­u­la­tion is less like­ly," he said.

He not­ed that an in­fect­ed dog pos­es a greater risk to hu­mans be­cause of its close­ness to hu­mans and its ten­den­cy to bite in de­fence. The Min­is­ter re­vealed that Ca­nine trans­mit­ted ra­bies was last re­port­ed in a dog in 1914, and in a hu­man in 1912.

"We don't have fox or rac­coon vari­ant ra­bies in Trinidad. Al­though we have mon­goose in Trinidad, we did not find the ra­bies virus in this an­i­mal pop­u­la­tion the last time a sur­vey was done or on any mon­goose test­ed since," Ho­sein said.

 Cur­rent­ly, there is bat trans­mit­ted par­a­lyt­ic ra­bies in Trinidad but not in To­ba­go, he added.

He said vet­eri­nar­i­ans have been as­sess­ing ra­bies on a case-by-case ba­sis be­fore rec­om­mend­ing vac­ci­na­tions.

Of the 68 species of bats in T&T, on­ly two species, both vam­pire bats – the bovine-lov­ing "Desmodus ro­tun­dus" and the white-winged "Di­ae­mus youn­gi" that feeds on birds – can trans­mit ra­bies.

Say­ing the sit­u­a­tion is be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored, Ho­sein ex­plained: "Vet­eri­nar­i­ans and rel­e­vant staff at risk of ex­po­sure to the virus are vac­ci­nat­ed. If a sus­pect ra­bies case is en­coun­tered, the in­for­ma­tion is ex­pect­ed to be re­port­ed to the of­fice of the Chief Vet­eri­nary Of­fi­cer (CVO) in ac­cor­dance with the An­i­mals (Dis­ease and Im­por­ta­tion) (Amend­ment) Act, 2020."

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture in a state­ment said night trap­ping of vam­pire bats con­tin­ues to be an im­por­tant com­po­nent in con­trol­ling the vec­tor for the ra­bies virus. 

In the last 50 years, there were five ma­jor ra­bies out­breaks in the live­stock pop­u­la­tion in 1974, 1997–1998, 2000, 2010 and 2012–2013, with the high­est an­nu­al case num­ber oc­cur­ring in 1997 with 56 cas­es.

The last case of par­a­lyt­ic ra­bies in a hu­man was in 1937.

Re­port Ra­bies

Any­one want­i­ng to re­port cas­es of ra­bies could call the fol­low­ing num­bers.

• Vet­eri­nary Di­ag­nos­tic Lab­o­ra­to­ry- 662-5678/645-4593

• Ca­roni Of­fice-672-4411

• St. George Of­fice-662-5986

• El Re­poso Of­fice-668-2712 or 668-2449

• Waller­field Of­fice-667-8488

• Craig­nish Breed­ing Unit-655-8110

• Pe­nal Demon­stra­tion Sta­tion-647-4672

• Rio Claro Demon­stra­tion Sta­tion-644-2326

Re­porter: Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va