The United against Rabies Forum will held an online webinar entitled “Rabies surveillance:
What gets measured gets done” with a focus on challenges in implementing effective surveillance and data-sharing and why it is is critical for informing decision-making and implementing effective rabies control practices.
Read more and register here:
https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_k_87hJc-QlaF75OQXx15NA
The Massive Open Online Course “MOOC Rabies” from Institut Pasteur Paris will be broadcasted from November 8, 2022 until February 14, 2023. The objective of this MOOC is to share the experiences and knowledge of international experts in animal and human public health on rabies. The course emphasizes the need for a multidisciplinary approach and "One Health" intersectoral cooperation for effective rabies control and elimination.
The MOOC is recorded in English, with French, English and Portugese subtitles.
Read more and register here:
It is generally accpeted that oral rabies vaccination (ORV) is the most underused of all tools in the global fight against canine rabies. In an emergency vaccination in the Zambesi region of Namibia a team comprising of Namibian veterinarians and FLI rabies experts was able to vaccinate more than 3300 local free-roaming dogs in just 4 days exclusively using oral vaccine baits containing a 3rd generation oral rabies vaccine. The data obtained impressively underline the performance of this methodology under field conditions and call for large-scale implementation.
Tomorrow is the most important day on the global rabies calendar. There will be numerous events around the world commemorating World Rabies Day that you can follow on the GARC website https://rabiesalliance.org/news/world-rabies-day-2022-theme-here. Please, keep in mind that you also can make a difference and safe the lives of tens of thousands of people dying every from this deadly disease that is entirely preventable by raising awareness and supporting national and international activities.
Capacity building often initiates and catalyzes further countrywide efforts to implement national rabies control strategies. With the support and supervision of WOAH and under the leadership of two reference laboratories for rabies, the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), South Africa and the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), Germany, the establishment of two Southern African core cells of a future Southern African Rabies Laboratories Network has been launched recently.
In commemoration of the World Rabies Day, the WHO CC and the WOAH Reference Laboratory for Rabies at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany, together with the Botswana Veterinary Research Institute, Botswana, organised a workshop on rabies diagnosis, which took place in Gaborone from 20 to 22 September 2022. Participants from Zambia, Namibia, Angola and Botswana were trained on rabies surveillance, sampling methods, DFA and real-time PCR.
Since March this year, the University of Oxford, UK, and the Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, are testing a novel human rabies vaccine to be used in a single dose regimen in a Phase Ib/II trial in Tanzania. It is based on the ChAdOx2 vector, a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) similar to the technology used successfully in the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
On May 2, 2022, the international rabies community lost one of its pioneers in the field of rabies research when Prof. Dr. Bernhard Franz Dietzschold died in the age of 81.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning recently about the risk of rabies after three Americans including a child died from the disease over a six-week period last year.
Lyn Alweis/Denver Post via Getty Images, FILE
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Although rabies has always been present in circumpolar regions of the world, the disease is popping up this winter in Canada's north again, where rabid Arctic foxes are reported to have attacked people and pets. While health authorities are used to these ups and downs and are stepping up their public awareness campaigns for people living in the areas, scientists increasingly concerned that due to rapid climate change and invading red foxes the situation could change dramatically in the coming years.
