world rabies day
Dr. Rajinder Kumar Bhardwaj
Every year, 28th September is observed as World Rabies day to raise awareness about rabies and enhance prevention and control measures. It is commemorated on the death anniversary of Louis Pasteur who developed first effective antirabies vaccine. World Rabies Day was first started in September, 2007 as an international campaign coordinated by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) in collaboration with many international human and veterinary health organizations like the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Organisation for animal health (OIE), the Pan American Health Organization and the USA centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2009, GARC after organizing three World Rabies Days reported that over 100 million people had been educated about rabies over 120 countries and nearly 3 million dogs had been vaccinated during the different events linked with campaign.
The mission of the day is to raise awareness about the impact of human and animal rabies and effective preventive and control measures. The theme of this year World Rabies Day is END Rabies Together. The theme is built from the previous themes to highlight the on going importance of global commitment across sectors- government, NGOs, donors, corporations, and many others- to effectively end the spread of rabies and save both human and canine population. It is based on One Health principle that the health and well being of people and animals are interdependent. Vaccinating animals against the rabies protect people too and in some cases safeguards livelihoods. This year, World Rabies Day is about that mutual benefit. End Rabies Together, we are all healthier is a win-win situation.
This programme has more relevance in Asia and especially India, Because Indian town and cities are home for over 30 million of stray dogs which account to 97 percent of human rabies cases due to bites. As per the World Organisation for Animal Health, (2013) each year, 70,000 people die worldwide from rabies and every ten minutes someone dies from rabies. More human deaths from rabies occur in Asia (>31,000 per year) than anywhere else in the world, It is alarming that within Asia, India has reported to have the highest incidence of rabies globally (20, 565 deaths per year) as compare to 23,700 rabies deaths per year in whole Africa. Actual picture may be more devastating, as the true number of human rabies death is unknown, because many cases go unreported.
Rabies is 10th most common cause of human deaths. Rabies is endemic in India except the Andaman & Nicobar and the Lakshadweep Islands. Rabies is deadly but wholly preventable disease caused by Lyssa virus. It affects all warm blooded animals and transmitted by saliva, bite or scratches from animals mainly dogs, foxes, Jackals, Monkeys and Mongoose etc. After bite from rabid animal, viruses present in saliva travel at rate of 12-24 mm per day towards central nervous system. Incubation period of disease is from days to years. Rabies in human develops in two form i.e Furious and Paralytic form. Early symptoms may include fever and tingling at the site of bite followed by violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, hydrophobia, paralysis, coma and death.
In case of dog bite or scratch starts first aid treatment with washing of wound with soap and water for 10-15 minutes and wound should be cleaned with 70 percent alcohol (commercial spirit) or Betadine (Povidone iodine). Post bite antirabies vaccination should be immediately started with Human rabies immunoglobins (HRIG) in case of Category-3 bites.
There is no comprehensive National Rabies control Programme in India. However, pilot project on prevention and control of human rabies was initiated under 11th five years plan since January, 2008 to test the strategy for prevention of rabies death in humans which was extended to 2011 in five main cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Pune and Mudrai. After seeing results, It is now proposed to start comprehensive control strategy for both human and animal components in the 12th plan in which all states and union territories will be covered for the human component and the animal component will be piloted in selected 30 cities. Many NGO’s like Rabies in India Foundation (RIA), Association for the Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI), Commonwealth Veterinary Association (CVA) and GRAC are also running rabies control programmes. Main constraints in control of rabies in India are lack of coordination, lack of comprehensive national programme and country shares border with six neighbouring countries where rabies is endemic.
The ongoing battle to control rabies by brutally killing the stray dogs has not yielded results. Mass vaccination is the only effective solution and vaccinating 70 percent of a dog population in endemic areas create a barrier of healthy immune dogs which prevent the disease from spreading. According to World organisation on Animal Health (OIE), the cost of vaccinating dogs remains minimal compared to the actual cost of emergency post-exposure treatments for the people who have been bitten and only 10 percent of the cost of these treatments would be sufficient to considerably reduce or even eliminate canine rabies.
Control of rabies in stray dogs by Animal birth control programme (Spaying and neutering) and oral vaccination can be effective procedures to control rabies. Control of rabies in wild animals is also of great importance which can only be feasible by oral antirabies bait vaccines. Let us take oath on this day to vaccinate our pets on regular basis and adopt stray dogs for controlling their population and educate the people about the rabies, then only we can control this disease.
(The author is Assistant Professor, Veterinary Medicine in SKUAST-Jammu.)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel