There’s been a lot of news on rabies here since a dying 10-year-old Cambodian girl infected with rabies, after being bitten by a cat, went viral on social media earlier last month. Please read the article on page 14 for the detail. There are still problems regarding rabies. A lot of dogs and cats including pet dogs and pet cats are not vaccinated in Cambodia, which gives you a high risk of being infected with rabies. Also, so many people are suddenly seeking vaccinations that there might be the short of vaccines in the future. So this panic over rabies is still an unsettled problem but personally it made me think about something else and which is “prevention”.
preventionーthe action of stopping something from happening or arising
The point is that “prevention” is not just getting vaccinated but it is also various actions made in daily life.
Brushing your teeth is prevention to tooth decay and periodontal diseases. Eating healthy, if I use an easier example, taking supplements is prevention to various lifestyle deceases.
It’s been said that Japanese have lower awareness on prevention compared with western countries. I have read a research on health attitude survey and the result actually showed that Japanese have a lower level of health awareness in comparison with other developed countries subject to the research. It might be overdependence on nation insurance system but Japanese tend to focus on treatment than prevention.
It should be alright if you live in Japan becuase Japan is still a country with lonevity and its national insurance system is something we can be proud of. However, we are living in Cambodia, not in Japan. Living oversea, especailly in developing countries like Cambodia always gives you a risk of “it could’ve been not that serious if he had the treatment in Japan” or in the worst case “he wouldn’t have died if he had the treatment in Japan”. “Every man for himself” sounds obvious but as I was feeling like I was used to living in Cambodia in a bad way, it made me reflect on a lot of things.