Global Networks Together Against Rabies

• Regional networks in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia aim to enhance cross-border intersectoral collaboration in bid to control rabies
• Networks will improve coordination, allocation of resources and ability to implement best practices at a global level
• For more information on the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, click here

Geneva, Switzerland 26 September 2014 – Significant progress towards a coordinated global response to the worldwide threat of rabies is made today as the world marks the 8th annual World Rabies Day on September 28th.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) has launched the Pan-African Rabies Control Network (PARaCoN) to spearhead efforts at ending rabies across the African continent. Africa and Asia account for the vast majority of human rabies deaths worldwide, a tragic fact that reflects the difficulties experienced to date in controlling outbreaks in remote areas and ensuring its far-flung populations can obtain access to life-saving vaccinations.

According to a new article in Science, co-authored by GARC, an enduring challenge for global rabies elimination is the ability to work effectively across national boundaries. PARaCoN is being created to meet this challenge, and is being formed through a merger of two existing rabies networks, the Southern and Eastern African Rabies Group (SEARG) and African Rabies Expert Bureau (AfroREB - focused on Northern and Western Africa), but will also cover new territories that neither group was able to serve in the past. Its aim is to build on the work of its predecessors by improving methods of reporting, sharing information and best practices in controlling the disease, improve diagnostic capabilities and promoting and coordinating government support of rabies elimination programmes.

PARaCoN will adopt a One Health approach to rabies prevention and elimination in Africa, incorporating experts from the medical and veterinary sectors, as well as other sectors such as education, welfare and socio-economics. The first meeting of the new network will be from February 11-13*, 2015 in Durban, South Africa.

*The ongoing impact of the Ebola epidemic has forced us to postpone this meeting. The new date is 9th - 11th June, 2015.

Professor Louis Nel, Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, which will act as Secretariat of PARaCoN, said: “Networks make us stronger together against rabies and this is a huge step in the fight to end rabies in Africa. We look forward to being involved in building this network and others across the world.”

He continued, “Effective rabies control requires a clear comprehension of the complexity of this classical zoonosis that can only be addressed with a One Health approach that embraces both human and animal public health concepts inclusive of scientific method and research, community and governmental function, communication and education, and secured priority funding.”

Elsewhere in the world, the Pan-American World Rabies Day initiative has been set up by international organisations, including professional associations, to bring attention to the issue of rabies in the Americas. Mass dog vaccination has been, and still is, the flagship intervention chosen by the countries in this region, which has helped bring about a drop in human fatalities from over 300 each year in 1980s to fewer than 10 in 2013. The regional drive by governments, supported by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), aims to eliminate dog-mediated rabies in the region entirely by 2015.

According to Dr Victor del Vilas, PAHO, “Governments need to work together to end rabies in the few countries in the Americas, such as Haiti, that still have major problems with this disease. It is still critical not to lose focus on the final push to end this fatal disease in our region.”

Following the call to action ‘Towards the Elimination of Rabies in the ASEAN Member States and the Plus Three Countries by 2020’, the ASEAN Rabies Elimination Strategy (ARES) has been developed, which adopts an integrated One Health approach that brings together the necessary socio-cultural, technical, organizational and political pillars to address the problem of rabies in the region.

GARC has been actively involved in a number of Asian countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia, and works with ASEAN on the development and implementation of the regional rabies elimination strategy.

All activities around the world are uniting under the theme of this year’s World Rabies Day, #TogetherAgainstRabies, which stresses the importance of not only countries but also sectors working together to eliminate canine rabies as a public health burden. Individuals have a role to play, too, in ensuring dogs are vaccinated and, in areas where the disease is present, helping to protect themselves and others, especially children, from risk of infection.

Rabies prevention projects have been supported by organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UBS Optimus Foundation, which have donated millions to the fight to end rabies. Rabies can be eliminated using existing tools and treatments, and all that is needed now is the political will to take this forward. International government and professional networks can ensure that rabies elimination across borders is taken forward and made sustainable.

For more information please contact:

Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC)
Email