Rabies prevention: help is here to make progress

As the excitement of World Rabies Day dies down, it’s a great time to think about how rabies control efforts could be reinvigorated or even start building a new program to eliminate rabies in your region. GARC and its partners have been working together to provide you with the most effective resources to help you with these efforts.

Our most comprehensive practical toolkit is the Blueprint for Canine Rabies Prevention and Control – developed by GARC’s Partners for Rabies Prevention network, including the WHO, FAO and OIE - to serve as a guide for countries that want to prevent human rabies by eliminating canine rabies within their borders.

It is a free, online resource, enabling ministries and other interested parties to help themselves through the process of designing, implementing and evaluating a large scale rabies control program.  It leads users through all of the components of a successful canine rabies control/elimination program, before, during and after mass dog vaccination, with information on surveillance and communications aspects of such a program.

Just ahead of World Rabies Day, a full revision and extension of the Blueprint for Canine Rabies Prevention and Control was completed. The aim is for the Canine Rabies Blueprint to become a central reference point from where those interested in implementing canine rabies control can find all the resources they need – from international recommendations on rabies control strategies, guidance on PEP regimens and animal movement regulations, to detailed practical guides on vaccination techniques and lists of supplies needed for surveillance teams, to case studies of how it has been approached in other countries.

A full review of the content was carried out to make sure it was accurate and up to date, which resulted in more than 200 page edits, and 55 updated or new resources being added. In addition, several more significant changes were implemented to reflect the discussions at the meeting of Partners for Rabies Prevention meeting in April.

A revised section on Communication focuses on how to identify stakeholders and tailor messages to all those different audiences that have a role to play in rabies control. If stakeholders are involved from the development stages, control strategies that are appropriate for the setting and the community participation necessary for success is more likely to be achieved.

Integrated into this revision are links to more data on the cost of rabies to countries, in terms of human and animal lives lost, economic losses, and the costs of control measures. In addition, a policy toolkit to help users advocate to policy makers in their countries for increased efforts and investment in rabies control is included.

Finally, an important new section, on planning and evaluating progress towards rabies elimination (the Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination, SARE), guides users through the necessary stages in a logical way (see separate article here).

More tools to help communities build awareness of and advocacy for greater efforts and investment in rabies control are anticipated to be incorporated into the blueprint as they become available. 

GARC is hosting a free webinar on December 4th for those who would like to learn more about how to use these resources, and you will also have an opportunity to get some of your questions answered – for details and to register please visit www.rabiesalliance.org/what-we-do/projects/global-webinars.