The City of Victorias in Negros Occidental will host the first remote rabies laboratory in Negros Island under the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) Japan and Philippines One Health Rabies (JAPOHR) project to help eradicate the viral disease in the Philippines.
The facility, which is seen to operate in August in the city’s veterinary hospital, will use the Japanese-developed lateral flow device (LFD) or immunochromatographic test (ICT) kits for early detection of rabies.
Dr. John Michael Cabuguason, city veterinarian, said on Monday Victorias is receiving support through the provision of rabies test kits and technical training while the city government is providing the site for the testing laboratory.
“In the next month, we can probably implement our rabies laboratory,” he told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
Last week, Cabuguason received an initial supply of LFD kits from Dr. Nobuo Saito of the JICA JAPOHR.
Cabuguason said while rabies is “100 percent fatal,” it is also “99 percent preventable” and that fast diagnosis is important to start early treatment and other responses.
In Negros Occidental, it would usually take long to detect rabies in dogs that have bitten humans since samples are still brought to the regional laboratory in Iloilo City for confirmatory testing, which also results in delayed reaction time.
“Almost 98 percent of rabies in humans are from dogs. With the remote rabies laboratory in Victorias, we will know in 15 minutes if a dog has rabies or not. Then we can immediately react and inform the owner, and we can vaccinate the other dogs and impound stray dogs,” he added.
Cabuguason said the remote rabies laboratory will also cater to neighboring localities in the Negros Occidental’s third district.
“Once we open the remote rabies laboratory, we will promote it in the district so other LGUs can also avail of the facility especially the people in the rural areas,” he added.
The ICT kits, which can diagnose rabies effectively in a maximum of 30 minutes compared to the usual two to three hours, have been developed with Japan’s Oita University and Japanese pharmaceutical firm ADTEC. (PNA)
