PRESS RELEASE: Partnering for a Rabies-Free Future: Integrating Rabies Control into National Health Priorities

28th September 2025, Geneva: In line with this year’s World Rabies Day theme, “Act Now: You, Me, Community”, GARC and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), are calling for shared responsibility, strong advocacy, and inclusive planning to ensure that voices from all levels, national to community, shape countries’ rabies control priorities.

With rabies being a serious public health problem in more than 150 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, causing tens of thousands of deaths each year, communities are making meaningful progress aimed at prevention.

Innovative initiatives like GARC’s Communities Against Rabies highlight the importance of vaccinating dogs, educating the public, and conducting surveillance to reduce transmission in high-risk settings. These efforts also demonstrate how structured capacity building can drive impact. Teachers, health workers, and local stakeholders are raising awareness and monitoring bite cases using GARC’s digital and educational toolkits. Their message to the global community is clear: empowered communities are essential to ending rabies.

Despite these efforts, a significant number of people continue to suffer bites from unvaccinated dogs. Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) remains critical, as 99% of human rabies deaths are caused by dog-mediated transmission. Yet, many bite victims cannot access or afford PEP — turning a preventable incident into a potential death sentence. This does not have to be the reality.

GARC urges eligible countries to integrate rabies control into broader immunisation and primary health care strategies, leveraging support from Gavi to access affordable PEP. GARC is also working to strengthen the public’s understanding of how to avoid dog bites and what actions to take if one is bitten, as well as improved surveillance and data collection to improve the quality of interventions.

“Rabies is 100% preventable, yet it still claims a life every nine minutes,” said Dr. Andre Coetzer, CEO of GARC. “As communities intensify their efforts to eliminate rabies, what’s needed now is for governments to embed these initiatives into long-term, strategic planning, ensuring rabies prevention is sustainably integrated into national immunisation and One Health strategies.”

Gavi is supporting eligible countries to access PEP and align rabies control with broader immunisation and health system priorities. This approach ensures that resources are directed where they can have the greatest impact.

“A rabies-free future is within reach, but only if we act together,” said Dr. Stephen Sosler, Head of Vaccine Programmes at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “Gavi is committed to supporting countries to expand access to life-saving post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) vaccines as part of a coordinated, multisectoral approach that integrates dog vaccination, public education, surveillance, and community engagement into national health strategies. By embedding rabies control within broader immunisation and One Health frameworks, we can protect lives and build stronger, more resilient health systems.”

GARC and Gavi have called for strategic leadership from governments and technical partners to elevate rabies elimination as a national priority, as well as ensuring community voices are amplified to inform decision-making based on local realities and needs.

Countries are encouraged to integrate rabies prevention into national health planning, including their national rabies elimination plans and immunisation strategies, with a focus on high-burden areas.

 

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About GARC:

Since 2007, GARC has built capacity to enable local, national and global stakeholders to help eliminate rabies worldwide. GARC works with more than 86 organizations across more than 35 countries. They work in the most rabies-endemic regions of Africa and Asia – click here to read more. From individual champions and community groups to national governments, GARC empowers people to lead and sustain effective rabies elimination efforts through a structured, science-led approach. Read more about GARC’s programs here.

GARC drives long-term impact by

• Supporting stakeholders with specialized planning and digital tools, like the GARC Data Platform that helps users capture and visualize real-time rabies data. Read more about the GARC Data Platform here.
• Providing expert guidance and continuous support throughout the rabies elimination process. Read more about their technical support here.
• Offering comprehensive training opportunities like the GARC Education Platform courses, as well as supplementary resources to enhance stakeholders’ skills and knowledge. Read more here.

 

Learn more at www.rabiesalliance.org and connect with GARC on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X.

 

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About Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. View the full list of donor governments and other leading organisations that fund Gavi’s work here.

Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 1.1 billion children – and prevented more than 18.8 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 78 lower‑income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation, above all the zero-dose children who have not received even a single vaccine shot. The Vaccine Alliance employs innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency.

 

Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and X (Twitter).