PETALING JAYA: Animal welfare groups are urging the government to allocate dedicated funds in Budget 2027 for rabies prevention and stray management following a recent human rabies death.
Malaysian Animal Association president Dr Arie Dwi Andika said a dedicated allocation for a comprehensive stray-management plan would help curb the spread of rabies among stray animals nationwide.
“This can include helping to cover services such as catching, neutering and vaccination carried out by these groups.
“The funding should also be channelled through the Housing and Local Government Ministry to community shelters to support local spay-and-neuter programmes,” he said when contacted yesterday.
This comes after a 31-year-old man in Kedah reportedly died on Sept 27 after being bitten by a stray dog in August, becoming the state’s first human rabies case since 1998.
Arie said the Kedah case was particularly worrying as it raised the possibility that a wider population of stray animals in the area could already be infected.
“The stray dog involved was likely bitten by other infected animals,” he said.
“So, it is highly likely that it was not just one random rabies-infected stray dog in the area and that the disease is being transmitted to other strays as well,” he said.
Stray Animal Foundation Malaysia president Kalaivanan Ravichandran said any such allocation should start at a minimum of RM20mil annually to ensure effective and coordinated rabies prevention.
He added that the funds should support local authority programmes covering humane capture, transport, neutering, vaccination, recovery care and post-operation follow-up.
“The allocation should also aim to expand local catch-and-neuter programmes, as this helps reduce the continual addition of unvaccinated puppies and sustain vaccination coverage within a community,” he said.
Kalaivanan added that the allocation should also be used to properly train and equip humane capture teams, build recovery facilities and fund community programmes on how to spot and avoid rabies-infected animals.
SPCA Selangor general manager Kelvin Cheah urged a bigger budget for the Veterinary Services Department to scale up stray vaccinations.
He said this would strengthen the department’s rabies vaccination, surveillance, diagnostic and outbreak-response capabilities.
“Mass vaccination should be the cornerstone of prevention, while indiscriminate culling is not an effective long-term control strategy.”
