{"id":525919,"date":"2026-07-05T05:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T05:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/525919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T05:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T05:43:15","slug":"as-bali-battles-rabies-surge-does-dog-meat-raise-the-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/525919\/","title":{"rendered":"As Bali battles rabies surge, does dog meat raise the risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In a quieter part of western Bali, far from the crowds and chaos of the south, a 38-year-old housewife was bitten by a stray cat while hanging out laundry in May.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Within weeks, she was dead: one of five people killed by rabies on the Indonesian resort island so far this year.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The following month, a rabid dog kept as a family pet in the same region, Jembrana regency, attacked two children and an adult. All three survived, thanks to swift post-exposure vaccination after tests confirmed that the animal was infected.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But they were far from the only victims. Between January and May 2026 alone, almost 30,000 people on the Hindu-majority island were bitten by suspected rabid animals and 21,000 received emergency vaccinations.<\/p>\n<p>Bali, together with East Nusa Tenggara province around 600km (370 miles) to the east, has the highest number of rabies cases in the whole of <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/indonesia?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Indonesia<\/a>, according to its Health Ministry. The viral disease is considered endemic in 26 of Indonesia\u2019s 38 provinces.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A person stands among mangrove trees at sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia\u2019s East Nusa Tenggara province, last month. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/3e270f6b-01b5-4a8c-94f0-d1fd3efcae6a_67586925.jpg\" title=\"A person stands among mangrove trees at sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia\u2019s East Nusa Tenggara province, last month. Photo: AFP\"\/>A person stands among mangrove trees at sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia\u2019s East Nusa Tenggara province, last month. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cMass vaccination is urgently needed given the relatively high number of rabies cases recorded in Jembrana during the first half of this year,\u201d I Gusti Ngurah Putu Sugiarta, the regency\u2019s top animal health official, said in a statement following the latest attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a quieter part of western Bali, far from the crowds and chaos of the south, a 38-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[17386,240391,240390,163,229115,240387,85,1445,46,240389,240394,53082,240393,103948,240392,61244,240388,1916],"class_list":["post-525919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-bali","tag-dog-meat-trade","tag-east-nusa-tenggara","tag-health","tag-humane-world-for-animals","tag-i-gusti-ngurah-putu-sugiarta","tag-il","tag-indonesia","tag-israel","tag-jembrana-regency","tag-kucingku-petcare","tag-medan","tag-mitra-medika-premiere-general-hospital","tag-north-sumatra","tag-obet-ginting","tag-rabies","tag-this-week-in-asia","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}