Updated Rabies Blueprints available in additional languages

GARC has expanded access to its newly updated Canine Rabies Blueprint – a comprehensive toolkit for developing rabies control programs – by providing translations of the website into Spanish and French. Version 3 of the Blueprint was originally unveiled in English in September 2014; however, collaborations with Translators without Borders and input from global rabies control experts have yielded updated Blueprint translations in both French and Spanish that were released in early June. Readers are now able to access the new translations through the drop-down language menu within the current Canine Rabies Blueprint website.

Developed by GARC and the Partners for Rabies Control, the updated version of the Canine Rabies Blueprint includes newly revised text, resources for effective rabies campaign communications, and additional tools such as the Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination, which allows countries to plan and self-assess their progress towards canine rabies elimination. (For further information on the recently updated version of the Blueprint, see this article from November 2014.)

The Rabies Surveillance Blueprint – a centralized guide for designing and conducting adequate surveillance programs that brings expert knowledge from global health organizations and academic researchers into one place — is now also available in French.

In order to be able to provide timely revisions and updates to these resources, GARC has chosen English, French and Spanish as the languages that will be supported going forwards.  There are currently no plans to update the other translations, but the Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese translations of the Canine Rabies Blueprint, Version 2, will remain available on the website.

The June launch of the French versions of the resources coincided with the kick off of Blueprint workshops held at the June PARCON (Pan-African Rabies Control Network) meeting in South Africa. These workshops familiarized African public and veterinary health experts with the updated resources in the revised Blueprint. With a large West African contingent participating in rabies control projects, a French version of the Canine Rabies Blueprint was essential to providing broader access to rabies control workers in this region, and the feedback received from the meeting was very positive.

Prof. Louis Nel, executive director of GARC, who has been involved in introducing the resources to both African and Asian rabies networks over the last few months, said, “Having the most recent updates available in Spanish and French will really help to broaden the Blueprint's accessibility and value to countries working towards rabies elimination.”

Contributed by Laura Baker, GARC newsletter contributor and website editor, who implemented most of the online translation updates to the websites