In the Philippines, the month of March is celebrated as Rabies Awareness Month (RAM) every year as decreed by presidential executive order. A massive information campaign around rabies prevention/control is conducted, along with a free, mass dog vaccination campaign throughout the entire country.
There is no cure for rabies, but it is 100 percent preventable through prompt, appropriate medical care. Every year hundreds of South Carolinians must undergo preventive treatment for rabies due to exposure to a rabid or suspected rabid animal. Although the cost varies, post-exposure treatment typic...ally exceeds $8,000 per person.
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Children are at high risk of dog bites and contracting rabies. Forty percent of reported rabies cases worldwide are children under the age of fifteen. In our project areas, the proportion of children dying is often even higher. Rabies most often persists in poor communities and rural regions of deve...loping countries in Africa and Asia. If the risks are widely understood and appropriate dog bite treatment is well known – rabies is 100% preventable.
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In March 2018, a family and their sick puppy travelled through heavy rains in Malawi to a rabies vaccination drive. The puppy had bitten the family’s 12-year-old son, Isaiah Mzonda several days before and tested positive for rabies during the vaccination drive. Without appropriate prevention and t...reatment, rabies is fatal. Therefore, the rabies bite was a potential death sentence for the family’s young son who had not received any post-exposure treatment.
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Rabies is entirely preventable, and vaccines, medicines, tools and technologies have long
been available to prevent people from dying of dog-mediated rabies. Nevertheless, rabies still
kills about 60 000 people a year, of whom over 40% are children under 15, mainly in rural areas
of economically ...disadvantaged countries in Africa and Asia. Of all human cases, up to 99% are
acquired from the bite of an infected dog.
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The incubation period (the time the virus spreads from the peripheral nerves near the site of the bite via the spinal cord to the brain – see transmission and pathogenesis) ranges in general between 2 and 3 month (2 weeks to 6 years are reported) depending on the site of infliction, the amount of ...virus and the virus strain. Due to its neurotropism all known lyssaviruses cause severe neurological symptoms as a result of an acute encephalitis. Therefore, clinical signs in humans and animals are very similar.
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Rabies is a viral zoonotic disease that causes progressive and fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. Clinically, it has two forms:
Furious rabies – characterized by hyperactivity and hallucinations.
Paralytic rabies – characterized by paralysis and coma.
WHO strongly recommends discontinuation of the nerve tissue vaccine, and replacement with modern concentrated and purified cell culture derived vaccines (CCDV) and embryonated eggbased rabies vaccines.
These vaccines must comply with WHO criteria for potency and innocuity following satisfactory ass...essment in humans during well-designed field trials
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Rabies is a fatal viral disease, but is preventable in humans. The rabies virus is transmitted to humans through virus-laden saliva from a rabid animal, mostly dogs. The virus is shed in the saliva of an infected animal and can be introduced into another body through bites, scratches and any other ...wounds that transect the skin. Contact of the infected saliva with mucous membranes is also thought to be a possible route of infection, whereas contact of infected saliva with intact skin is not considered an exposure. Rabies is preventable through pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for individuals at high and continual risk, and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
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Rabies is a vaccine-preventable, zoonotic, viral disease affecting the central nervous system. Once clinical symptoms appear, rabies is virtually 100% fatal. In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans. Yet, rabies can affect both domestic and wild an...imals. It spreads to people and animals via saliva, usually through bites, scratches or direct contact with mucosa (e.g. eyes, mouth or open wounds). Children between the age of 5 and 14 years are frequent victims.
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The desired impact of the OH JPA is a world better able to prevent, predict, detect and
respond to health threats and improve the health of humans, animals, plants and the
environment while contributing to sustainable development. The OH JPA aims to work
towards this vision in the following way:
...
• Provide a framework for action and propose a set of activities the four organizations
can offer together to advance and sustainably scale up One Health.
• Provide upstream policy and legislative advice and technical assistance, to help
set national targets and priorities across the sectors for the development and
implementation of One Health legislation, initiatives and programmes.
• Take stock of existing cross-sectoral global and regional initiatives around One
Health, identify and advise on synergies and overlaps, and support coordination.
• Mobilize and make better use of resources across sectors, disciplines and
stakeholders.
• The OH JPA is guided by a theory of change and makes use of One Health principles
to strengthen collaboration, communication, capacity building and coordination
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Rabies is a fatal viral zoonosis and serious public health problem.1 All mammals are believed to be susceptible to the disease, and for the purposes of this document, use of the term animal refers to mammals. The disease is an acute, progressive encephalitis caused by viruses in the genus Lyssavirus....
2 Rabies virus is the most important lyssavirus globally. In the
United States, multiple rabies virus variants are maintained in wild mammalian reservoir populations such as raccoons, skunks, foxes, and bats. Although the United States has been declared free from transmission of canine rabies virus variants, there is always a risk of reintroduction of these variants.The rabies virus is usually transmitted from animal to animal through bites. The incubation period is
highly variable. In domestic animals, it is generally 3 to 12 weeks, but can range from several days to months, exceeding 6 months.8 Rabies is communicable during the period of salivary shedding of rabies virus. Experimental and historic evidence documents that dogs, cats, and ferrets shed the virus for a few days prior to the onset of clinical signs and during illness. Clinical signs of rabies are variable and include inappetance, dysphagia, cranial nerve deficits, abnormal behavior, ataxia, paralysis, altered vocalization, and seizures. Progression to death is rapid. There are currently no known effective rabies antiviral drugs.
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These new guidelines should help medical and paramedical professionals to provide the state of art rabies prophylaxis to all animal bite victims in the government hospitals and prevent human rabies deaths in the state. The medical officers whenever in doubt are encouraged to contact the state nodal ...officer and seek further clarifications regarding PEP.
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Website last accessed in 12.03.23
CDC’s Lauren Greenberg writes about building rabies diagnostic capacity in the effort to control rabies in countries that are most affected by the disease.
Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene vik,113 no.11. Dengue is the world's most common arboviral infection, with almost 4 billion people estimated to be living at risk of dengue infection. A recently introduced vaccine is currently recommended only for seropositive indi...viduals in a restricted age range determined by transmission intensity.
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Overview
The aim of this guide is to support national immunization programme managers and others responsible for implementing human rabies vaccine programmes to:
inform policy discussions and operational planning for introducing or expanding rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) into a nationa...l immunization programme (e.g. through the national immunization programme, or other programmes); and
highlight considerations specific to rabies PEP for integration into existing systems, including for implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.
While the guide is mainly intended for programme managers and focuses on human vaccination, complementary animal health measures are highlighted where relevant given the zoonotic nature of rabies.
The guide was developed collaboratively with input from technical experts in rabies and immunization, vaccines and biologicals.
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