World Rabies Day Webinar a Huge Success!

On Sept 21-22, 2011 an estimated 600,000 viewers from 83 countries joined the 2nd Annual World Rabies Day Webinar. During the 16-hour event, 28 speakers from 13 different countries discussed topics such as canine rabies elimination; human rabies surveillance, prevention and intervention; wildlife rabies control; information and education campaigns and building sustainable programs. At many locations around the world, numerous viewers gathered at one computer to listen and participate in the global educational initiative designed to reach populations living at daily risk to rabies. To further increase participation, many locations utilized their own technology to transmit the live broadcast to others within their countries. The two day Webinar was recorded and has been viewed over 100 times in 35 countries. If you missed the live Webinar broadcast and would like to view the recordings, please go to: http://webinar.worldrabiesday.org.

On the first day of the Webinar (Sept 21), the program concentrated on presentations and involvement from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. In order to attract participation from the eastern hemisphere and reach communities most burdened with rabies, the Webinar began at 12am-midnight EDT (New York) and ended at 8am EDT (New York). Administering the Webinar during this time frame allowed for the highest level of participation around the world. Presentations included [among others] Dr Stella Lapiz discussing the Bohol Rabies Project; Dr Katie Hampson highlighting knowledge gaps in the global rabies burden; and Dr Kira Christian talking about how CDC's Global Disease Detection Team supports international rabies outbreak investigations.

On day two (Sept 22), the Webinar focused on capturing participation from audiences in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean Regions. Running from 9am-5pm EDT (New York), the Webinar featured presentations in English and Spanish. During this Webinar Dr Kis Robertson presented on a community intervention and resulting free online training to reduce misadministration of PEP; Dr Julie Sinclair discussed the risk for introduction of rabies via importation of dogs; and Jordona Kirby provided a comprehensive overview of wildlife rabies surveillance and control. Dr Francois Meslin concluded the two day Webinar event with an overview on the "Role of WHO in Rabies Prevention and Control".

When looking at viewers' job titles as part of our evaluation, we found that the World Rabies Day Webinar was truly a One Health effort with participation from veterinarians, medical doctors, occupational and public health nurses, students, professors, scientists, researchers, consultants, laboratorians, health educators, industry executives, environmental health specialists, animal control staff and wildlife officers. 83% of survey respondents cited the Webinar as being informative and or useful and 97% stated they would attend a future Webinar. When asked about technical difficulties, 21% reported experiencing connection issues. However, more than 90% of these were end-user issues such as local connection issues, firewall/blocked website and not having an audio input device.

With more than 20 topics recommended for future Webinars and phenomenal participation in both the 2010 and 2011 Webinars, we hope to host even more Webinars throughout 2012. If you would like to suggest a topic for a Webinar in your country, please contact [email protected]. On behalf of the coordinating team, we would like to thank everyone who helped make the 2nd Annual World Rabies Day Webinar a huge success!

Contributed by Peter Costa, co-ordinator of the WRD campaign and the WRD webinars.