Baguio City is seeing an increasing trend in animal bite cases for the past three years, according to Dr. Khecy Colas of the City Health Services Office-Animal Bite Treatment Center (CHSO-ABTC).
She said the CHSO-ABTC has catered to 11,303 animal cases as of Dec. 31, 2021.
Colas said last year had the highest number of cases with 4,019 compared to 3,278 and 3,806 cases in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Of the total number of animal bite cases, 11,009 were Baguio residents and 294 were transients, she said.
She added no human death due to rabies was recorded in the city for the past four years.
Rabies is a contagious and fatal disease of dogs and other mammals that causes madness and convulsions, transmissible through the animal saliva to humans.
Colas said while there was an increasing trend of animal bites in the city for the past three years, there was a decreasing trend among transients.
“The increase is probably attributed to the pandemic, which limits movement of people hence more chances of being bitten by pets. With the pandemic, there was an increase of pet ownership. On the other hand, due to increasing animal bite centers outside the city and with the limitation of movement, transient cases went down,” she said.
Colas said the three-year data compiled by her office showed dog bites are still the highest with 9,201 compared to cat bites with 1,963 and monkey/pig bites with 23. – Gaby B. Keith
April 27, 2024
