UN agencies set new global framework to eliminate rabies

Several United Nations agencies Thursday jointly launched a new framework to eliminate human rabies and save tens of thousands of lives each year.

Launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Global Alliance for the Control of Rabies (GARC), the framework calls for three key actions -- making human vaccines and antibodies affordable, ensuring people who get bitten receive prompt treatment, and mass dog vaccinations to tackle the disease at its source.

"Rabies is 100 percent preventable through vaccination and timely immunization after exposure, but access to post bite treatment is expensive and is not affordable in many Asian and African countries. If we follow this more comprehensive approach, we can consign rabies to the history books," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.

Tens of thousands of people die from rabies each year and, worldwide, four out of every ten people bitten by suspected rabid dogs are children aged under 15 years.

The cost of human vaccines to protect from rabies is, however, beyond the reach of many of those who may need it.

Recognizing that human vaccination is currently not always affordable, the new framework emphasizes prevention through vaccinating dogs -- whose bites cause 99 percent of all human rabies cases. A dog vaccine costs less than one U.S. dollar.

Whilst vaccinating dogs will be key in the new approach, the elimination of rabies -- and saving the lives of those who are bitten -- will not be possible without more widely-available human vaccines.

Currently, about 80 percent of people exposed to rabies live in poor, rural areas of Africa and Asia with no access to prompt treatment should they be bitten. Bringing treatment closer to victims and providing wider access to affordable vaccines and potent rabies immunoglobulins, which neutralize the rabies virus before it can get a hold in the body, are vital to achieving zero rabies deaths.

Bringing down the cost of human rabies vaccines and treatments will require strong international collaboration to make quality-assured vaccines and rabies immunoglobulin available to health centers in regions where rabies is endemic.

As of 2015, WHO and the OIE Vaccine Bank have delivered more than 15 million doses of canine rabies vaccines in many countries. Endit