Posted on: Wednesday, January 30, 2002

EDITORIAL
To soon to change rabies rules again

The latest proposal to change Hawai'i's longstanding animal-quarantine rules comes with the best of intentions and a growing body of scientific expertise behind it.

But state officials must not be stampeded into making wholesale changes in a program that has helped keep Hawai'i one of the few rabies-free areas of the world.

Rabies in domestic animals is relatively unusual in the United States, but outbreaks do occur from time-to-time, particularly in the West and Southwest. Rabies among wild animals is more common and poses the greater health risk to humans.

The great concern in Hawai'i is that if rabies becomes established here, it would be nearly impossible to root out of the wild-animal population.

All this, of course, sounds like so much theory to new residents who must leave their beloved pets in quarantine at the state facility in Halawa. Today's rules call for a 120-day "wait and see" quarantine for those animals without proof of vaccination and 30 days for those animals that have been properly vaccinated and identified. That's a fairly recent change from the policy that put all animals through the full four-month quarantine.

The latest proposal, which has the backing of the Hawaiian Humane Society, would allow some pet owners to avoid quarantine altogether. The proposal says if the pet has been properly vaccinated on the Mainland and can be positively identified, then it should be allowed to go directly to its new home.

That hardly adds up to a foolproof system, however.

Given the other public health dangers and environmental threats we face, the outside possibility that rabies could become established here may seem to be a relatively minor matter. And surely everyone sympathizes with loving pet owners who face that one-month to three-month quarantine after arrival here.

But the plain fact is that Hawai'i has been fortunate to avoid this disease. The somewhat liberalized rules that went into effect in 1997 appear to be working. We should be wary of any proposal to change the rules further until we are rock-solid certain the new rules will work and can be enforced with 100 percent certainty.