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Learning from COVID-19, Implementing One Health Approach to Eliminate Rabies

About 4,6 billion people (60% of the world’s population) are at risk of getting rabies and approximately 97% of documented human cases are attributable to dog bites.  The ultimate goal is to control and eliminate dog-mediated rabies, which is one of the few communicable diseases that can be eliminated using currently available vaccines and tools for veterinary and public health interventions.  With a more comprehensive and integrated approach, it is expected that dog rabies will be eliminated in target areas, and there will be an eventual decline and disappearance of human rabies cases.  Current efforts aim to strengthen coordination and technical and institutional capacities.  Focus areas include human rabies prevention through pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, mass community dog vaccination, surveillance and epidemiology, enhancing laboratory diagnostic capability, increasing public awareness and risk communication, educating communities and professionals, enacting supportive legislation, improving dog population management, and establishing and protecting rabies-free zones/areas. Existing mechanisms for implementation, when applied, emphasize One Health collaborations. ...