How The Pet Hospitals Helps Fight Rabies

The Pet Hospitals is committed to fighting rabies in the world’s most at-risk regions.

Rabies is a deadly disease that can affect domestic animals, wild animals, and humans. It is caused by a virus and is mostly transmitted through the bite or scratch of an infected animal. The most common source of rabies in humans in under-developed nations is from exposure to unvaccinated dogs. Children are at greatest risk from rabies, since they are more likely to be bitten or scratched by dogs.

More than 55,000 people in poor countries die from rabies every year – a rate of one person every ten minutes. Africa and India still bear the highest burden of total annual rabies deaths. (i)

Countries with the highest fatalities from rabies are: India, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, China and Myanmar. (ii)

Because many of these areas do not have sophisticated medical services or easy access to hospitals, treatment is often unaffordable or unavailable. Fortunately, prevention through vaccination of dogs has been shown to be an effective way to halt the spread of rabies and save lives.

Twelve years ago, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, together with health organizations around the world, set a goal of eliminating human rabies transmitted by dogs by 2030.

The Pet Hospitals is committed to this cause and is proud to support programs that help supply rabies vaccinations to areas in most risk for disease. That is why we purchase Nobivac® vaccines, which sponsors rabies vaccination donation to rabies eradication programs, such as Mission Rabies and Afya Serengeti. By using Nobivac® vaccines for our patients, we support the company’s ability to supply ongoing support and vaccine donations to areas in need. And, together we can eradicate rabies from the world!

To learn more about this program, please visit afya.org.

(i) World Health Organization. Rabies Fact Sheet: Epidemiology. Accessed June 23, 2017 at http://www.who.int/rabies/epidemiology/en/.

(ii) Hampson K, et al. Estimating the global burden of endemic canine rabies. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2015;9(4). Accessed June 23, 2017 at http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003709#pntd.0003709.s002.