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On Sept 28th of each year, people worldwide mark World Rabies Day. The purpose of the holiday is to raise public awareness about rabies and ways to avoid it. All over the world, dogs are animals very frequently infected with rabies. Dog bites account for further than 99 % of human cases of rabies. World Rabies Day is observed to honour Louis Pasteur, a renowned French scientist, and biologist who passed away on September 28, 1895. He created the initial, successful rabies vaccination. The 16th World Rabies Day will be observed this year. The background, importance, and themes of World Rabies Day in 2022 have been covered in this article
Key Takeaways
- Even though rabies is an entirely avoidable illness, it nonetheless claims the lives of about 60,000 individuals annually.
- 90% of these fatalities take place in Asia and Africa. Children make up 40% of those casualties.
- The critical part of rabies infecting humans is dogs. Bats are also to blame in some situations.
- Zero before 30: The WHO, the GARC (Global Alliance for Rabies Control), and other international organisations have achieved zero human dog-related rabies fatalities by 2030.
History of World Rabies Day
Since roughly 2000 BC, rabies has been known. The Assyrian Codex of Eshnunna (about 1930 BC), which states that the owners of a dog exhibiting rabies signs must take precautions against bites, has the first known written account of rabies. The operator would be severely penalised if a rabid dog bit someone else and they subsequently died. Lyssa, the soul of furious fury, was thought to have been the source of rabies in ancient Greece.
Then, in mediaeval times, rabies had become a fairly common illness. It wreaked such devastation in Europe in the 1700s that it ultimately compelled the government to end all feral dogs that period out of fear of being infected. The first epizootic to emerge in the Age Of exploration occurred in Boston in 1768, suggesting that rabies may have its roots in the Old World.
The discovery of this aetiology by Louis Pasteur in 1885 resulted in the successful development of a nerve tissue vaccination, which was later refined to lessen its sometimes serious side effects. The dread of rabies persists in current times, and various literary works with a zombie or related theme have been inspired by the illness and its characteristics, notably agitation.
The Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC), a US-based non-profit organisation, and the Hubs for Disease Prevention and Control, Atlanta, USA, collaborated to host the first World Rabies Day initiative on Sept. 8, 2007, with the support of numerous international health organisations, including the WHO, Pan American Health Organisation, and International Organisation for Animal Health.
World Rabies Day has been identified as a helpful tool to aid in rabies preventative measures, trying to target at-risk societies, animal health care workers, public health professionals, governments, key opinion leaders, and experts, according to a 2011 review by a group of international government entities, scholars, NGOs, and vaccine manufacturers.
2022 World Rabies Day: Importance
To urge groups at all scales, from worldwide to local, to promote the dissemination of information that’d lead to the avoidance of rabies, World Rabies Day was established as an all-inclusive day of education, awareness, and action. Its goals include spreading knowledge about rabies and ways to combat the illness, as well as teaching residents of rabies-prone nations how to prevent rabies.
Rabies remains a significant health problem in many countries all over the world. Over 99% of all people’s mortality worldwide is caused by rabid dog attacks, with 95% of those deaths occurring in Asia and Africa.
The majority of these deaths—roughly 20,000—occur in India, where there are an estimated 31,000 rabies-related deaths each year across Asia. Currently has the highest prevalence of human rabies globally, primarily because of stray dogs. Except for Antarctica, every continent is susceptible to rabies transmission in people and animals.
2022 World Rabies Day Theme
The relationship between the ecosystem and both individuals and animals will be highlighted with this year’s World Rabies Day theme, “Rabies: One Health, Zero Deaths.”
The Global Strategic Framework aims to eradicate human rabies death brought on by canines by 2030; it is a bold plan with achievable objectives. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the apparent flaws in the healthcare systems, but it also demonstrated what is possible when several sectors come together to work together.
The WHO claims that by banding together, joining forces, including localities, and being committed to ongoing dog vaccination, rabies may be eradicated.
People ignore dog bites
Since rabies symptoms might take days or weeks, people treat dog bites carelessly. They view a dog bite as nothing more than an exterior bite wound that will naturally heal. Little aware that the deadly infection has entered the body. Because it becomes tough to save the person once rabies clinical signs start to manifest, the careless attitude of the majority is deadly.
The symptoms of rabies do not manifest right away
- While symptoms are present, the rabies virus must reach the brain.
- This clarifies the delay.
- Once the virus enters the brain, it produces the initial flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, uneasiness, fever, migraine, and stiffness.
- The person may have delirium, bizarre behaviour, hallucinations, hallucinations, hydrophobia (fear of water), and sleeplessness as the illness worsens.
- When these clinical indications start to develop, no medication or vaccination is going to be able to rescue you.
- Only about 20 examples of rabies survivors who also had these signs are known to exist.
