The government is taking up a Tk 42 crore 64 lakh 49 thousand project to prevent rabies. The cost of vaccinating dogs has been spread across 37 budget heads, and Tk 15 crore 74 lakh alone will go to consultants, which the Planning Commission has objected to.

The Department of Livestock Services (DLS) sent the proposal for the "Preventing the spread of rabies through stray dogs" project, including what has been called "unreasonable" consultancy spending, to the forest, fisheries and livestock wing of the Planning Commission's agriculture, water resources and rural institutions division. A Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) meeting was held on the proposal, where the consultancy costs were questioned.

The commission has proposed cutting the unnecessary consultancy costs to a reasonable level. The project is to be implemented over three years in the Dhaka City Corporation area. The commission cannot find a justification for many of the costs under the 37 heads. Tk 28 lakh has been set for foreign training of four people, and Tk 15 crore 46 lakh for hiring a consulting firm.

Asked about the high consultancy costs, Dr Md Habibur Rahman, head of the DLS planning and evaluation cell, told Jagonews: "This work needs experts. The project cannot be implemented without experts. That is why the consultancy cost has been set at Tk 15 crore."

On the costs under various heads for two officers, he said: "The total salary of two officers does not come as one amount. Salary includes various benefits: house rent, special benefits, recreation allowance and so on. The cost has been set by putting all of them together."

Dr Anjan Kumar Deb Roy, head (additional secretary) of the forest, fisheries and livestock wing of the agriculture, water resources and rural institutions division, said of the Tk 15 crore consultancy cost: "It cannot really be called consultancy. It could be called operational services. The cost is for vaccinating stray dogs and providing various services."

On unnecessary spending under the 37 heads, he said: "It was considered after holding all the meetings. Unreasonable outside costs have been dropped."

Rabies is a deadly viral disease spread mainly by dogs to animals and humans. There is no treatment, and infected animals and people die in every case. About 55,000 people die of rabies worldwide every year.

The project's aims are to protect animal and public health by preventing rabies through mass vaccination of stray dogs; to control the stray dog population and improve their health through sterilisation; and to raise public awareness of humane treatment of animals and of rabies and its prevention.

Its activities include domestic training for 10 people, foreign training for four, seminars and workshops, buying animal vaccines and medicines, preventive (MDG) activities, stray dog control, buying food for neutered dogs, hiring a consulting firm and medical training. Three laptops, a projector, six air coolers and furniture will be bought under the project.

The basic pay of two people, essentially the project director and deputy project director, has been set at Tk 35 lakh 67 thousand. For the two officers, Tk 17 lakh 83 thousand has been set for house rent, Tk 1 lakh 8 thousand for medical allowance and Tk 72 thousand for education allowance. Their festival allowance is Tk 5 lakh 94 thousand, rest and recreation allowance Tk 1 lakh 98 thousand, mobile allowance Tk 36 thousand, New Year (Nababarsha) allowance Tk 69 thousand and special benefit allowance Tk 3 lakh 57 thousand.

A residential telephone encashment allowance of Tk 1 lakh 16 thousand has also been set. About Tk 2 crore has been set for 20 outsourced staff. Tk 1 lakh 16 thousand has been sought for domestic training of 10 people, Tk 72 thousand for internet bills, Tk 6 lakh for tender advertisements, Tk 20 lakh for video documentaries and Tk 3 crore 25 lakh for honoraria.

Tk 19 lakh 47 thousand has been set for seminars and workshops, Tk 12 lakh for other honoraria, Tk 6 lakh for other stationery, Tk 49 lakh 50 thousand for car hire, Tk 2 crore 74 lakh for animal vaccines and medicines, Tk 1 crore 30 lakh for food for neutered dogs, Tk 74 lakh for an awareness campaign and Tk 19 lakh 73 thousand for a 2 percent engineering consultancy fee.

In addition, Tk 5 lakh has been set for renovating the project office, Tk 3 lakh 60 thousand for three desktop computers, Tk 70 thousand for a multimedia projector screen and other accessories, Tk 1 lakh 20 thousand for buying a laptop and Tk 3 lakh 50 thousand for a photocopier.

Tk 11 lakh 53 thousand has been set for furniture, Tk 1 crore 60 lakh for a mobile pet clinic, Tk 1 lakh for an IPS, Tk 9 lakh 60 thousand for six air coolers, Tk 2 crore 40 lakh for surgical and medical equipment for the CDH pet clinic and Tk 9 crore 86 thousand for building the CDH pet clinic under static clinic upgrading.

The commission has raised questions on several other points. Provision has been made for one training course on neutering and treating stray dogs with 10 trainees each, and for three seminars with 100 people at each workshop. But the proposal does not say who will attend as trainees or participants.

Even though four veterinary surgeons will work on the project as an additional duty and three veterinary surgeons will serve as consultants through the consulting firm, Tk 3 crore 25 lakh has been set aside as honoraria for veterinary surgeons neutering dogs. The commission has questioned the justification for this money.

Although Tk 2 crore 40 lakh has been set aside to buy surgical and medical equipment for the Central Veterinary Hospital (CVH) pet clinic, the DPP (development project proposal) gives no specifications or information on market price checks.

According to the DLS, about 2.5 lakh people in Bangladesh are bitten or scratched by dogs, cats or jackals every year, most of them children. There are no accurate figures on dog or cat bites in livestock, but in 2023, 1,232 head of livestock died of the disease.

The Directorate General of Health Services' disease control branch runs a science-based national rabies elimination programme as part of the global strategy to prevent rabies. Under the nationwide rabies vaccination drive, about five lakh dogs were vaccinated in the 2020-21 fiscal year, in a first round in four districts and a second round in 16 districts.

Since 2010, the health ministry, the local government ministry and the fisheries and livestock ministry have been working jointly on a national rabies control and elimination programme, with the aim of making Bangladesh rabies-free by 2022. A total of 67 rabies control and elimination centres have been opened across all districts, offering modern management of dog-bite patients and rabies vaccine free of charge.

To meet the Sustainable Development Goals, the World Health Organization is working towards a world free of dog-mediated rabies by 2030. The CDC zoonotic disease control section of the Directorate General of Health Services is working to prevent rabies through vaccination.

The public awareness programme has been widely publicised, but eliminating the disease requires making dogs safe from rabies. If 70 percent of dogs in an area are mass-vaccinated, herd immunity develops among them. It is scientifically proven that three rounds of vaccination over three consecutive years bring transmission from dogs to people or other animals down to near zero.

To speed up mass vaccination of dogs towards a rabies-free Bangladesh by 2030, the DLS, in coordination with the disease control branch of the Directorate General of Health Services, has proposed implementing this project first in the Dhaka City Corporation area.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.