OIE Conference 'Rabies Prevention at the Source'

Between September 7 – 9th 2011, the OIE along with its international health partners, WHO and FAO, hosted a global conference in Incheon, Republic of South Korea focusing on "Controlling rabies at the source of infection".

Representatives from most of the 178 member countries were in attendance. In his remarks to the delegates in attendance, Dr Vallat, Director General of the OIE stated that two diseases have been eradicated from the world, the first one was small pox eradicated through the direction of human health and the second, announced just this year, was rinderpest, eradicated through the direction of veterinary public health. Dr Vallat went on to state that it was now time for human and veterinary health officials to work together using a 'One Health' approach to tackle the problem of canine rabies. He further mentioned that if One Health is not able to work with rabies, it is not going to be able to work for any disease.

During the conference, rabies experts from around the world discussed many topics concerning the prevention of rabies including: Current and future tools; economic models; international standards and regulatory issues; the role of stakeholders in rabies control; new approaches in dog rabies control; strategies to eliminate dog rabies; and building sustainable programs.

The recommendations from the meeting are now available on the OIE website. Some of the key recommendations state: that the OIE, WHO and FAO should consider rabies a priority and encourage international solidarity and donor support for countries in need of funding to initiate and sustain control programmes for rabies; that member countries are encouraged to participate in the annual observation of World Rabies Day; that laboratory twinning and training programmes should be encouraged; and that dog population management, rabies control and animal welfare be included in the basic core curriculum of the initial training of veterinarians and para-veterinarians. Additionally, they encourage countries to make rabies a notifiable disease and support the new study re-evaluating the global burden of rabies that is being coordinated by Dr Katie Hampson from the University of Glasgow with support from the Partners for Rabies Prevention and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control.

Contributed by Dr Deborah Briggs, executive director of the Alliance, and a participant at the Seoul meeting. There is a press release about the meeting and two videos of questions to Dr Bernard Vallat, and Dr Noel Tordo available on the OIE's website.