Iowa ADT helps Nuristan PRT fight deadly rabies outbreak

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FENTY, Afghanistan -- The Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team is fighting an outbreak of rabies in the province’s Titin Valley that has claimed the lives of four Afghan citizens, but they are not going at it alone.

The PRT is getting help from the Iowa National Guard’s 734th Agri-Business Development Team, which provided 300 doses of rabies vaccine. The vaccine will be used to innoculate dogs in the area and will help avoid the  slaughter of Titon Valley’s canines.

“We were going to have to go to the villages in the valley, and if we saw any suspicious animals, we were basically going to have to put them down,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Kyle N. Burditt, a physician’s assistant with the PRT from Dodge City, Kan. “We were going to end up killing a lot of animals that wouldn’t have to die if we didn’t have this vaccine.”

U.S. Army Maj. Loren Adams from New Liberty, Iowa, is the 734th ADT’s veterinary officer.  One of his areas of expertise is veterinary public health, and he provided technical advice to the Nuristan PRT, which does not have a veterinarian on staff. According to Adams, vaccinating animal populations is the only effective way to bring a rabies outbreak like the one in Nuristan’s Titon Valley under control.

“It’s really important that we vaccinate the dogs,” Adams said. “You can’t kill your way out of a rabies problem. There’s just no way to kill them all, so vaccinating the animals is really the way to go.”

Burditt expressed gratitude for the ADT’s help. He also emphasized his eagerness to put the vaccine to work immediately.

“We are trying to push out the vaccine to the local villages as soon as we can so we can quell those outbreaks and stop any more people from dying of rabies in our area,” Burditt said.

For Adams, providing the rabies vaccine to the PRT had no downside. However, he did have one regret.

“We only wish that we could be there helping them,” Adams said.