via Rabies kills child, more cases reported | The Zimbabwean 31 July 2014
Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Zimbabwe (VAWZ) has expressed serious concern at the “increasing” number of rabies cases in the country amid reports the disease has killed a child.
VAWZ, a Harare based animal well-being non-profit organisation, said a dog from Arcturus outside the capital and a feral cat from Avondale recently tested positive for rabies.
A young boy from Chegutu, added VAWZ, succumbed to the deadly disease after a neighbour’s dog bit him.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of a mild rabies outbreak in rural Shurugwi.
“VAWZ is deeply concerned with the increasing number of confirmed rabies cases throughout Zimbabwe,” said the organisation.
It added: “We cannot stress enough the importance of having ALL your pets vaccinated annually against this deadly disease. Should you come into contact with an unknown animal, particularly one displaying unusual behaviour, please seek medical advice immediately”.
It said children must be warned not to interact with strange animals.
The animal welfare organisation advised people to report sightings of suspect animals to VAWZ on 0778431528 and 0775722449 or the nearest veterinary surgery.
In the absence of early detection and treatment, rabies is about 100 percent fatal.
COMMENTS
now its rabies it would not surprise me the next thing will be Ebola
In Zimbabwe poachers poison elephants to kill them for their tusks, and vultures eat the dead elephants, then the vultures die too because they eat the poisoned animals, so this causes a shortage of scavengers to clean up the forests of dead and deaseased animals like jackals which carry the rabies desease. Vultures are a very very very important part of the ecology system of the whole world. Vultures eat all dead animals in the forests (with or without deseases) and the vultures themselves are not affected with these deseases because their digestive fluids are so powerful that they destroy all the deadly deaseases found in animals like the rabies and the anthrax deaseases which can be passed from animals to humans. So, vultures clean up the forests for us humans so that we are safe from deaseases like rabies and other deaseases like anthrax. So if poachers causes a shortage of vultures in the forests , then deaseases like rabies and anthrax with spread to dangerous levels and dogs will catch the rabies virus and cause an outbreak of rabies all over villages , towns and cities all over the country.
So are you’re saying we need to start breeding vultures?