| No: 10 | October 2007 |
First World Rabies Day, 8 September 2007 Health Protection Agency, London, United Kingdom- World Rabies Day was inaugurated on 8 September 2007. This initiative involves human and animal health partners from local to international level with the goal of supporting human rabies prevention and animal rabies control through awareness and resources. Rabies, both a vaccine-preventable and a neglected disease, is a global public health problem. More than 3 billion people, over half the world's population, are at risk for rabies, especially in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There are about 55,000 human rabies deaths per year, mainly occurring in Asia and Africa, and approximately 30-50% of the cases are in children. A WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies was done in 2004 to estimate the rabies burden of disease and its distribution worldwide. Rabies post-exposure treatment is an emergency action as once clinical symptoms occur rabies is a fatal disease. So far there has been only one documented case of a patient that survived rabies infection. Even though human and veterinary vaccines exist, the use of these to prevent and control rabies varies greatly worldwide. Rabies is also a zoonosis, disease of terrestrial animals and bats which is transmitted to human mainly through the bite of infected dogs and cats. In Europe, the WHO Collaboration Centre for Rabies Surveillance and Research maintains the Rabies Information System website and publishes the "Rabies-Bulletin-Europe". In Europe (WHO region) in 2006, there were 9,172 reported cases of animal rabies distributed as following: domestic animals - 2,984, wildlife - 6,152 and bats 34. There were two human cases reported for the same year. This first World Rabies Day is thought to be an important occasion to raise awareness and support for an important public health problem amongst not only the general public but also amongst human and animal health professionals. Reference |
