[The title
was written by my editor.]
Scientists offer commentary this week on how vaccinating the world’s
domesticated dogs is the key to reducing the number of annual human deaths
caused by rabies.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
Vaccinating
dogs is the key to controlling rabies worldwide, say experts. However, world
leaders seem to lack concern, at least to the extent of making a difference in
the number of people who die every year from being infected with the rabies
virus.
Over
60,000 people die each year from rabies, and most of these are children in Asia
and Africa. Nearly all deaths by rabies can be attributed to bites by domestic
dogs. Nearly all cases are fatal, once symptoms appear.
“The irony
is that rabies is 100 percent preventable. People shouldn’t be dying at all,”
said Guy Palmer, a veterinary infectious disease expert at Washington State
University. Palmer and colleagues wrote a commentary on the matter that was published on Thursday in
the journal Science.
The
commentary was timed to coincide with World Rabies Day. Wrote the authors,
“Where dog rabies has been locally eliminated, the disease disappears in all
species.”
According
to the World Health Organization, approximately 15 million people are
vaccinated against rabies every year worldwide after exposure to rabies. For
most, however, the shots cost too much at $40 to $50 each.
“It is the
poor who die; they are more frequently victims of rabid dog attacks, they
suffer fatal delays in trying to access PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis), or
simply cannot afford to pay for it,” Palmer and colleagues wrote.
In
Tanzania, a program to vaccinate as many as 1,000 dogs a day has taken human
deaths from rabies down from 50 each year to almost none. The WHO is struggling
to raise funds and find cooperation to conduct similar operations elsewhere.
Canine
rabies was eradicated in the U.S. in 2007 with vaccination.
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