Vaccinating domestic animals, the best recipe to prevent rabies

Bringing existing vaccines closer to domestic animals – mainly dogs and cats – and raising awareness among the population of less advanced countries in the fight against this disease: these are the main recommendations of experts on the eve of World Day to Fight against Rage.

On September 28, coinciding with the anniversary of the death of the French doctor Louis Pasteur, that anniversary is commemorated annually, a day promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (AGCR).

According to the program director of this NGO, Terence Scott, rabies causes tens of thousands of deaths each year around the world (59,000 according to the World Organization for Animal Health), killing approximately one person every nine minutes.

However, Scott acknowledges that “the poor monitoring of cases of the disease and the problems with its notification” may be contributing to these numbers being underrepresented.

“It is a daily disease and we need a better approach to have better data and to conduct disease elimination efforts in a more concrete way,” he explains in an interview with EFE.

A neglected disease

Rabies is one of the twenty tropical diseases recognized by the WHO as neglected due to its high transmission capacity that occurs mainly in vulnerable populations.

In the case of rabies, which is transmitted through bites or scratches from animals to humans, the mortality rate of the disease is almost 100%, in both people and animals.

In this sense, the AGCR program director considers that mass vaccination of all dogs is “the only means to eliminate between the 95% and the 99% of rabies cases in humans.

“Evidence shows that if we eliminate rabies among dogs, we will also contribute to reducing the number of cases among wild animals,” something fundamental in Latin American countries such as Argentina or Paraguay, where there is a strong prevalence of the so-called paresian rabies, transmitted by common vampire bats, a type of bat common in the Gran Chaco area.

Scott estimates that, under ideal conditions, countries could almost completely eliminate rabies among humans in five years, which would allow them to reach the goal set by the WHO for the year 2030.

Furthermore, the program director draws attention to the fact that the economic effects of vaccination would be very positive for the countries most affected by rabies.

Greater awareness in Latin America

In this sense, both AGCR and the Mundo Sano Foundation, based in Buenos Aires and specialized in prevention, research and fight against neglected diseases, recognize that Latin American countries have made great efforts in last decades.

However, biologist Andrea Gómez, management manager at the Mundo Sano Foundation, tells EFE that the elimination of the disease has not yet been achieved in most places in the region.

Gómez emphasizes the importance of vaccination of the entire dog and cat population.

“There is a vaccine available – something that does not exist in other cases – and efforts have to be focused on ensuring that the population can have access to this tool,” points out.

The biologist refers to the most vulnerable population in communities that are furthest from basic animal health services, where in many cases the animal population has never received veterinary care.

To reverse this situation, the Mundo Sano Foundation has developed joint work in recent years with other actors, such as the biotechnology company Biogenesis Bagó – with which EFE has an agreement to disseminate health content -, with which it collaborates in projects linked to prevention and vaccination in areas of special epidemiological interest, where access to prevention tools is complicated.

In any case, the main actors agree that progress in the fight against rabies must come from “political decisions by national, regional and municipal authorities”, which in some countries on the African continent and Asia have been marked by a “lack of political will that has led to a financing problem”, Scott says.

“The key and weakest point is to tell people how rabies is transmitted and what responsible animal owners have to do so that they have coverage.”Gómez insists.