Country connections – building a picture of GARC’s in-country work and relationships
A newly updated section has been launched on the GARC website to provide a more comprehensive overview of the progress made by governments working in collaboration with GARC.
The Where We Work page features a global map, highlighting countries and demonstrating the truly global reach of GARC. By hovering over each country, the link leads the user to a dedicated country page with detailed information on its activities, as well as the latest country news and data.
Over the last couple of years, GARC has expanded its regional networks, and now coordinates PARACON, ARACON and MERACON. These networks include the national governments that comprise most of the canine-rabies endemic world. The global map allows particular regions to be selected so that the countries belonging to a regional network can be highlighted.
GARC works with different governments to evaluate the rabies situation in their countries and then provides the capacity building needed to address critical gaps in national anti-rabies programmes. All of these in-country efforts are captured on one summary page for each country, truly showcasing GARC’s involvement in a country’s progress towards rabies control.
The different elements of each country page are outlined below:
Country data: Countries use the Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination (SARE) and related tools to set priorities and guide them in their rabies control efforts. As these anti-rabies programs are implemented, health workers gather data for surveillance, and this can be used for national and international reporting as a measure of their progress towards ending this disease. When permission is given by countries to share this data, GARC makes it available on its website.
In-country capacity building and joint projects: GARC also works within countries to help governments build their professional capacity to tackle rabies control. To this end, GARC assists by planning workshops, training in diagnostics and vaccination, and other joint projects to boost canine vaccination efforts, and a country’s completion of these are displayed on the page.
World Rabies Day events: Thousands of institutions and individuals hold World Rabies Day every year, and GARC supports them with an event platform and resources to help make the events successful and to share them with a wider audience. Each country page has a link to any registered event that is hosted in that country.
GARC Education Platform graduates: Finally, those interested in increasing their knowledge and skills can enroll in one of GARC’s free online courses. The number of people who have completed a course on the GARC Education Platform will be displayed in a graph visible on each country page.
Each country page brings all this information together to create a detailed overview, with further links to the latest news and resources.