KUCHING: Local councils have been urged to comply with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in any anti-rabies enforcement, including the removal of stray dogs.
Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg said the welfare of the animals should also be monitored.
"We have our SOPs in place and we should follow these so that they don't just become pieces of printed paper," he said in his speech at the Asia for Animals Sarawak Conference 2023 here, today (October 13).
On October 1, Deputy Agriculture and Food Security Minister Chan Foong Hin said the government was targeting to vaccinate 40,000 pet dogs in Sarawak this year in an effort to curb the spread of rabies.
He said as of September 7, 27,668 pets in the state had been vaccinated.
A total of 949 cases of rabies have been recorded in Sarawak since 2017, of which 72 cases have infected humans and resulted in 65 fatalities.
Meanwhile, Abang Johari said instead of offering rewards for the public capture of stray animals, the focus should be on implementing a robust neutering programme.
"We know that the uncaptured animals will still reproduce and the problem will keep recurring if we don't snip it at the source of the problem.
"We can discuss having state-wide neutering campaigns, we will need coalition partners here to work with us to do a study on this. Let us advance the call for humane stray dog and cat population management and control," he said.
Abang Johari said owners also have a responsibility to ensure that their pet dogs do not roam out of control in a manner that would pose a problem to the community or the environment. --BERNAMA