Overview
Update on elimination of human
deaths from dog-mediated rabies
Current scenario
The most recent estimate of the global
number of deaths from dog-mediated
rabies is 59 000 per year. Rabies is associated with a 99.9% fatality rate and severe
trauma in families in which a rabies death
occurs, and remains a major public health
concern in most of Africa and Asia and
some parts of South America. In the
Americas, dog-mediated rabies is still a
public health issue in specific regions in
some countries. Robust data on rabies are
lacking for many countries.
Ending human deaths from dog-mediated
rabies by 2030 (“Zero by 30”) is the goal
of a global strategy agreed in 2015 by a
cross-sectoral partnership composed of
WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World
Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH)
and the Global Alliance for Rabies
Control. In 2020, as partnerships are
vital to making progress towards Zero by
30, United Against Rabies (UAR) was
launched as a collaborative forum for
public and private sector organizations, rabies experts, development partners and civil society
to work to improve rabies control.
The Zero by 30 strategy is based on a One Health
approach that integrates human health, animal health
and the environment, indicating the importance of
action on several fronts, including ensuring timely
access to life-saving post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) of
people exposed to suspected rabid animals, vaccinating
dogs to stop the disease at its source and increasing
community awareness about preventing bites and
scratches and the risk of rabies. Safe, effective human
and dog vaccines and understanding of disease transmission dynamics are available and, as the experience
of countries that are now rabies-free shows,6
the
expected results are achieved when the measures are
applied appropriately.