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Southern Africa faces burden of rabies control

By Wallace Mawire

Southern Africa still needs to brace itself to control the burden of controlling rabies, which is still being heavily felt in some 13 countries of the region, said Berhanu Bedane, Livestock Development Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), during an International Course on Surveillance and Control of Rabies held at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) early last month.

The course was jointly organized by the Directorate of Veterinary Services, the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe, the National Institute of Health Research in Zimbabwe, the French Research Institute for Sustainable Development, and the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development.

It was also supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, the Health Sciences eTraining Foundation, FAO, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, Capacitating One Health in Eastern and Southern Africa and the French Embassy in Zimbabwe.

Dr Perrine Parize from the French Research Institute for Sustainable Development said that in 2018, four organizations—the WHO, WOAH, FAO and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC)—joined forces as the United Against Rabies Collaboration and have set a goal of zero human dog-mediated rabies deaths by 2030.

She said that the aim of the collaboration is to draw on existing tools and expertise to empower, engage and enable countries to save human lives from the preventable disease. Parize said that the course on rabies surveillance and control has been designed to provide practical training on rabies for professionals in the animal and human public health sectors to help achieve the objective.

She added that the edition of the course held in Zimbabwe is the eighth in a series that was first held in Senegal in 2013, followed by Cambodia, then Cameroon (where it was held twice), Morocco and Cote d’Ivoire.

The course emphasized the need for a ‘One Health’ approach and highlights the importance of a coordinated regional effort. Also, the course gathered participants from Zimbabwe’s human and animal health sectors, as well as participants from Zambia, South Africa, Somalia, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi and Kenya.

FAO’s Representative, Bedane, said that except for the two island nations of Mauritius and the Seychelles, burden of rabies is heavily felt in the remaining 13 countries of the Southern African region.

He said that it is estimated that 25 000 people die annually due to rabies across the African continent. Bedane added that studies have shown that about 40% of all deaths due to rabies involve children under the age of 15 years. He said that in most cases, children play with dogs, and there is a likelihood that they fail to report scratches, which may lead to infection.

‘lt is heartbreaking to see children and adults alike succumb to this preventable disease due to challenges ranging from lack of awareness, inadequate technical capacity and resources for confirmatory diagnosis,’ Bedane said.

Some of the challenges he mentioned include inaccessible post-exposure prophylaxis, lack of vaccines and logistics to conduct dog mass vaccinations and poor coordination amongst different sectors.

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