How the Sarawakian govt’s mistakes caused the rabies outbreak

Back in his primary school days, this writer remembers sitting with his friends during recess one time and talking about how scary rabies was. Being dumbass kids with minimal knowledge of the disease, we would scare each other with jokes like ‘Yo if you get bit by a dog with rabies, you’ll froth at your mouth and act like a dog’. Little did we know how close to the truth we were… and the truth is somehow worse.

So, this is a very rough idea of how rabies works: Once you get bit by an animal with rabies and you don’t seek immediate treatment, the clock starts ticking. You can read more about the symptoms here, but you will die once clinical signs of rabies appear. There is no cure for the disease.

For those living in urban areas, especially in Semenanjung, rabies is seen as sort of an urban myth, cuz the Peninsular is largely rabies-free, except for a rash of cases that hit our Northern states back in 2015. Sadly, it’s not quite the same in East Malaysia, as…

Rabies is ravaging almost every area in Sarawak

Before Sarawak’s current ruff patch with rabies, the state was confirmed to be rabies-free up till 2015, and the outbreak started officially in 2017. We’ll talk more about the Sarawakian government’s role in this, but to illustrate how bad the situation is right now, the state has recorded 13 deaths out of 15 cases in 2023 alone. To put those numbers into perspective, the state reported 55 cases between 2017 and 2022 (9 or so cases a year on average) which makes 2023’s numbers absolutely shocking.

And have a gander at this:

This is, if you couldn’t tell already, a map of Sarawak, and it’s not a map of their internet coverage. That green bit represents daerah Limbang, and according to an article from 2019, this is the only place in the state that was rabies-free. We have no information on what the map looks like in 2023, but given the rise in cases this year, it’s probably not looking great.

In response to the sitch, the state government is aiming to eradicate rabies from Sarawak by 2023, and part of the plan is to vaccinate 40,000 of the state’s dogs by this year. So far, they’ve done 27,668. They’ve also set up an ‘immune belt’ along the 1,032km-long border to keep out animals that are potential rabies carriers. And while it’s cool that they’re trying to clean this mess up…

The Sarawakian state government was (partially) at fault for the rabies outbreak

You see, up to 2015, the State Veterinary Services had been monitoring the rabies situation in Sarawak, and it was reported that they knew animals carrying the rabies virus could come in from Kalimantan – West Kalimantan, particularly, cuz of the shared border with Sarawak.

And then, the border surveillance was stopped in 2016. Part of it was apparently due to complacency. Part of it was because the government’s Veterinary Research Institute in Ipoh was busy dealing with the aforementioned outbreak of rabies in Semenanjung, and they told Sarawak to reduce the number of dogs to be sent there as part of routine testing.

The “blind” year was accompanied by the failure of Sarawak’s clinicians and public health staff to be on the lookout for symptoms in patients that pointed to rabies. The state had been rabies-free all these years, so why would they? And when the health staff of several villages didn’t think to report an increase in dog bite cases in 2017, the pooch had well and truly been screwed.

It also didn’t help that:

• Clearing of dense forests along the West Kalimantan-Serian land border made it easier for dogs and other animals to cross into Sarawak
• Sarawak’s Department of Veterinary Services was formed on 25 January 2017, only months before the outbreak and was thus unprepared
• The enforcement of Local Council Ordinances regarding the ownership of dogs and handling of strays were ‘almost non-existent’

And if you’re wondering why Sabah stayed relatively untouched by rabies, we… don’t have a straightforward answer for you. Maybe it’s cuz North Kalimantan dogs hate Sabah, but who knows. The state is on guard against the paw-sibility of a disease spillover, though, so that’s good.

More importantly…

If you’ve been bitten by any mammal, go to a healthcare facility IMMEDIATELY

While 99% of human rabies cases come from dog bites, any mammal can be carriers of the virus. Dogs, cats, bats, rats, whatever. So if you got bit by any of them, seek medical attention RIGHT AWAY. This bears repeating:

Once symptoms of rabies show up, it’s too late. You WILL die. Full stop.

This goes not just for our readers from Sarawak, but from anywhere on this globe. Rabies does not sympathize. Rabies does not discriminate. Rabies is legion. Sekian.