Campaign helps to make rabies history!

Rabies is 100% preventable, yet results in approximately 55,000 deaths each year¹, almost one person every 10 minutes.  Most of the deaths occur in rural areas of Africa and Asia, with approximately 10 million people receiving treatment on an annual basis after being exposed to animals thought to have the disease.

Working together to make rabies history, leading animal health company, Intervet, is supporting the Alliance for Rabies Control (ARC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other partners in the launch of the inaugural World Rabies Day on Saturday 8 September. This major event is co-sponsored by World Health Organisation (WHO).

With the aim of engaging 55,000 participants around the world – one for each person who dies needlessly from the disease each year – the campaign will highlight awareness of this devastating disease, raise funds and resources to support rabies prevention programmes in developing countries and educate people about rabies, its prevention and control.

“World Rabies Day offers all of us a unique opportunity to increase global awareness of the most deadly disease known to mankind, “ says Dr. Deborah Briggs, executive director for the Alliance for Rabies Control.  “Until now, there has not been a coordinated effort to let the world know that rabies can be readily prevented through education, dog vaccination and increased human awareness as to proper wound management and administration of rabies vaccination after an exposure has occurred.”

Intervet’s support of the World Rabies Day campaign follows the company’s donation of 200,000 doses of its rabies vaccine to the ‘Afya Serengeti’ (meaning health of Serengeti) project to help control the incidence of animal and human rabies in north-western Tanzania.  Run by epidemiologist, Dr Sarah Cleaveland, from the Centre of Tropical Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.  The initiative aims to bring widespread canine vaccination to this famous nature reserve to eradicate the rabies threat for humans and animals alike.  The vaccination programme has already proved to be successful with the resurgence of the African wild dog population, which was nearing extinction.

World Rabies Day fundraising events will take place across the globe including the worldwide charity fun run, Run for Rabies, to raise money for vital rabies prevention programmes such as the Afya Serengeti project.

“Rabies is a disease which is totally avoidable through preventative measures such as vaccination programmes for the main reservoir of the disease – the domestic dog,” comments Jim Hungerford, general manager of Intervet UK Ltd.  “By supporting World Rabies Day we’re helping to both raise awareness of this devastating disease and extend the reach of these programmes in developed and developing countries throughout the world.”