A recent global study on canine rabies determined about 160 people die from the disease every day.
The report is the first to look at the death toll and economic impacts of the preventable disease, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control reported.
"This ground-breaking study is an essential step towards improved control and eventual elimination of rabies," said Professor Louis Nel, Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC). "An understanding of the actual burden helps us determine and advocate for the resources needed to tackle this fatal disease."
The study showed rabies poses the greatest risk to the poorest countries; and dog vaccination rates are below what is necessary to control the disease across almost all of Africa and Asia. Rabies is almost always fatal, but is also close to 100 percent preventable through methods such as the vaccination of dogs.
The study also points out that reporting systems are crucial to the elimination of rabies because they can monitor the success of prevention techniques. The One Health approach to eliminating rabies deaths through the collaboration of human and animal health sectors could save many lives and reduce the impact the disease has on the world's economies. The researchers noted the countries that have invested the most in dog vaccinations are the ones in which human rabies deaths have been virtually eliminated.
"No one should die of rabies and GARC and its partners will continue to work together using a One Health approach towards global rabies elimination," Nel concluded.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
