Newsletter Issue 58

Nominate someone today for a World Rabies Day award as thanks for their great work in rabies prevention. Nominations close on September 7th. The shortlisted entries will be announced on World Rabies Day, September 28th, and the awards will be announced on One Health Day, November 3rd.

As part of an ongoing vaccination and awareness campaign in Harare, Zimbabwe, hundreds of copies of GARC's educational booklet "Want a Friend? Be a Friend!" have been distributed to local children to help them learn about dog bite prevention, rabies, and responsible pet ownership.

A new research study undertaken by GARC and recently published in PLoS ONE has quantified the benefits and the limitations of relying on the provision of human vaccine to prevent deaths from dog transmitted rabies. These new findings are of great significance to all rabies endemic countries hoping to reach the global goal of zero human deaths by 2030.

A strategic plan that provides a phased, all-inclusive, intersectoral approach to eliminate human deaths from rabies has just been launched by United Against Rabies, a collaboration of four partners: the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC).

In South Africa, the Rabies Educator Certificate (REC) has been integrated into the veterinary college curriculum at the University of Pretoria. This year, the vet students were asked to train primary school students on dog bite and rabies prevention. Here, we share three stories where the Want a Friend? Be a Friend! booklets were used to teach about the importance of taking good care of dogs and understanding how to behave safely around them.

A Philippine medical team recently conducted a combined rabies and leprosy awareness campaign, distributing pictographic flyers on rabies prevention while at the same time providing hygiene kits and medications for skin disease patients. The screening clinics took place on Palawan--the longest island and largest province in the Philippines.

A team of rabies specialists from World Animal Protection in Africa and from Makueni County in Kenya traveled to the Philippines to evaluate the archipelago’s recent successes with their rabies control programs and to gather new ideas on rabies elimination.