After a man in Donghe Township, Taitung County was bitten by a rabid ferret-badger this week, Premier Jiang Yi-huah at today's Cabinet meeting called on citizens to maintain a high level of vigilance and undertake proper precautionary measures against rabies.
Such precautions include refraining from approaching, trapping or eating wild animals and informing animal epidemic prevention agencies about apparently rabid animals for subsequent handling by professionals, he explained, adding that anyone bitten by an animal should immediately clean and disinfect the wound, then report to the hospital for further treatment to minimize the possibility of contracting rabies.
The man bitten in Donghe quickly received intravenous injections of immunoglobulin and a vaccine, the Executive Yuan pointed out. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has already distributed an emergency allocation of 2,500 rabies vaccines for human use and related epidemic prevention resources to high-risk areas.
"Rabies has already appeared in mountainous regions of a number of counties and cities," Jiang emphasized. "This shows that the rabies epidemic is spreading among wild animals.
"Since the biting incident, the MOHW and the Council of Agriculture (COA) have established a cross-agency taskforce dedicated to rabies prevention which will proactively coordinate precautionary measures and strengthen preventative action, including disease surveillance, vaccine allocation, clinical assessment and management, pet vaccination, stray animal control, and public health education to prevent the proliferation of the disease and set citizens at ease. It is extremely important for the MOHW and COA to actively explain this issue to every sector of society," he concluded.