Webinar on Rabies prevention and control tools in Asia

On 30 June, the Food and Agrisulture Organization of the UN (FAO) organized a Webinar on rabies prevention and control tools in Asia, the first of a series of two webinars dedicated to rabies.

In order to improve knowledge on rabies prevention and control, this webinar was organized under the framework of LinkTADs, a research consortium funded under the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), which aims to coordinate research on animal disease control between partners in the European Union and China. The webinar was organized with the technical assistance of EuFMD. 

The webinar started with a presentation given by Bernadette Abela-Ridder from WHO making the case of rabies for global elimination. This part highlighted the burden of rabies for poor and rural local communities and the role of surveillance so that data/evidence informs monitoring and evaluation but also better programmatic planning and dog and human vaccine procurement forecasts.

A presentation on Rabies Blueprint was given by Louis Nel from the Global Alliance for Rabies Control who stressed the role of GARC in raising awareness on this neglected disease, especially with the creation of World Rabies Day in 2007, as well as the importance of communication and how to engage with the local community in controlling the disease.

The FAO presentation, given by Katinka de Balogh focused on developing a stepwise approach for rabies control, describing all the six stages required to move from an endemic situation to freedom of the disease. FAO is proving guidance and support to countries in order to embark on rabies elimination. 

Gregorio Torres from the OIE, focused on OIE international standards which included provisions for disease surveillance and notification, recommendations for international trade, stray dog population control and rabies diagnosis and vaccination. He briefly introduced the concept of OIE vaccine bank as vaccine procurement mechanism that has been successfully used by many countries.

Lastly, Eric Brum from FAO Bangladesh, described the principles and practices for rapid rabies control, highlighting the challenges faced by veterinarians in identifying incubating animals, and the field experience in implementing vaccination as an important element for reducing transmissibility, contact rate and the duration of infection to maximize the results of rabies prevention and control.

Summarized from the news story on the FAO EMPRES website. The 1.50 hr long webinar was recorded for viewing Here and presentations can be downloaded Here.