The Road to Dog Rabies Control and Elimination—What Keeps Us from Moving Faster?

Abstract

Rabies, a vaccine preventable neglected tropical disease, still claims an estimated 35,000–60,000 human lives annually. The international community, with more than 100 endemic countries, has set a global target of 0 human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030. While it has been proven in several countries and regions that elimination of rabies as a public health problem is feasible and tools are available, rabies deaths globally have not yet been prevented effectively. While there has been extensive rabies research, specific areas of implementation for control and elimination have not been sufficiently addressed. This article highlights some of the commonest perceived barriers for countries to implementing rabies control and elimination programs and discusses possible solutions for sociopolitical, organizational, technical, and resource-linked requirements, following the pillars of the global framework for the elimination of dog-mediated human rabies adopted at the global rabies meeting in December 2015.

Using phylogeographic approaches to analyse the dispersal history, velocity and direction of viral lineages — Application to rabies virus spread in Iran

“…Understanding the key sources responsible for rabies epizootics and identifying host switches can have concrete implications on the implementation of rabies control measures in animals, as well as on the strategy of animal vaccination towards the ultimate goal of elimination (Fusaro et al, 2013;Un et al, 2012). In fact, rabies vaccination in wildlife requires specific strategies and stakeholder involvement (Freuling et al, 2013, Hsu et al, 2017, Müller et al, 2015, Wallace et al, 2018, which are different from those applied for infected dogs (Fahrion et al, 2017;Lembo, 2012). In Iran and the Middle East, rabies has been reported in many wild carnivore species such as foxes, golden jackals, wolves and martens (Janani et al, 2008;Picot et al, 2017;Seimenis, 2008).…”

Estimating the effectiveness of vaccine programs in dog populations

“…These efforts have led to the elimination of diseases such as canine-variant rabies virus in many countries and reduction of other zoonoses such as leptospirosis, parvovirus, canine distemper virus and tick-borne diseases. Veterinary and public health infrastructure in many middle- and low-income countries has not been extensively developed and a propensity to allow domestic dogs to roam freely further compounds poor animal health and facilitates transmission of zoonotic pathogens [4]. …”

Challenges to human rabies elimination highlighted following a rabies outbreak in bovines and a human in Punjab, India

“…Although this study is limited in that it focuses on one village, the opportunity to conduct this detailed survey following a rabies outbreak highlights potential challenges to rabies elimination. In the literature, the main barriers identified to rabies control are “big picture” challenges such as outreach of awareness campaigns to rural areas, dog population control, PEP and vaccine availability and affordability, political will and availability of technical expertise (Abbas & Kakkar, ; Abbas, Kakkar, Rogawski, & on behalf of the Roadmap to Combat Zoonoses in India initiative, ; Fahrion et al, ). We suggest that overcoming “local” challenges will be as important as overcoming big picture challenges.…”