REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, DENPASAR -- The administration of Bali province will resume the sixth phase of mass rabies vaccinations in March 2015.

"We hope to carry out rabies vaccinations from March to June depending on the availability of infrastructure and the vaccine," Head of Bali's Livestock and Animal Health Office Putu Sumantra said here on Wednesday (14/1).

Some 70,000 doses of rabies vaccines from the 2014 program are currently available; the administration is set to buy 250 more doses for its prevention and control program this year.

"This year, our target is to vaccinate more than 300 thousand dogs and pups," Sumantra noted.

The Bali province has set aside Rp6.18 billion for rabies vaccinations as part of its prevention and control programs in nine regions in the resort island.

Some Rp2 billion will be used to procure rabies vaccines, while Rp4.18 billion will be spent towards operational costs in the nine districts in the province.

The amount allocated has been raised from the Rp5.9 billion set aside in the budget for 2014. While Rp3.5 billion was used to buy vaccines, Rp2.4 billion was spent on operational costs.

According to Sumantra, Bali has some 400 thousand dogs, and in the previous year, the administration had successfully vaccinated around 385 thousand dogs.

He expressed hope that people will nurture their dogs well so that the vaccination program will be a success.

"If a dog is allowed to roam free, it will be difficult to vaccinate it. Not to mention the presence of stray dogs," Sumantra remarked.

The issue of rabies receives great importance in Bali as dogs have always been an integral part of Balinese culture.

Since May 2011, the provincial and local governments of Bali have been carrying out an island-wide rabies vaccination campaign to ensure that 70 percent of the canine population is vaccinated, thereby preventing the contagion of the virus.

As a result of these efforts, the number of human rabies cases has declined from eleven per month in 2010 to just one per month in the next year. Following the mass vaccination of dogs, the number of reported cases in 2013 dropped to only one.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has noted that the Bali model has been modified and implemented in the other affected parts of Indonesia to progressively control and eliminate the rabies-causing virus from the entire country.

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