Building a Rabies-Free World Through One Health, Community Action and Responsible Dog Care

Rabies: A preventable disease that still claims lives Rabies is one of the few diseases on earth that is essentially one hundred per cent fatal once symptoms appear — and also one hundred per cent preventable before they do. That contradiction is not a medical mystery. It is a coordination failure. This World Rabies Day, the theme “Stronger Together” asks a blunt question of all of us: if we already own every tool needed to end this disease, what exactly is stopping us? Rabies and other similar viruses are zoonotic, neurotropic viruses belonging to the family Rhabdoviridae, genus Lyssavirus. These viruses cause indistinguishable clinical illnesses. Rabies is distributed worldwide, infecting various mammals, including dogs, cats, bats, livestock, and wildlife(1). Rabies is a zoonotic infection transmitted to humans through contact with the saliva of an infected animal's saliva via a bite, open wound, abrasion, conjunctiva, or mucous membranes, including genitalia (2). Dog bites account for 99% of rabies cases, making dogs the primary reservoir worldwide(3). Rabies is one of the oldest known zoonotic diseases, yet it remains one of the most preventable causes of death. It is a disease in which the tragedy is not simply that people die—it is that, in most cases, death could have been prevented through timely vaccination, appropriate post-exposure care, responsible dog ownership and coordinated community action.