Human behaviour in keeping dogs and its relationship to rabies

Abstract

This study was a qualitative study that conducted in Bali, Indonesia. Bali has been an endemic of rabies since 2008. Many factors have been related to rabies. One of them is human behavior. This research was focused on human behavior in keeping dogs and its relationship to rabies. The study was conducted in 3 villages at Buleleng regency where positive rabies dogs have been found in 2017. There was a high population of dogs in the villages, and most of them lived wildly. Data were collected through document review, interview, and direct observation. After being collected, they were analyzed using content analysis. Results of this research show that most of the villagers had been aware of rabies, but has got poor knowledge about it. They did not know how to prevent it, especially on how to threat wound caused by rabies dogs’ bite. Furthermore, the villagers did not give any vaccine to their dogs. They only waited for the vaccine officer from the government to come to their house. The main problems in preventing rabies, related to human behavior, based on this research are: 1) lack of village’s leaders involvement, especially in controlling and administering prevention program, 2) lack of people respond in controlling dogs population and dogs mobility, 3) lack of active participation of dogs owners to vaccinate their dogs and 4) lack of people knowledge about PEP procedures.