The ragekills more than 55,000 people worldwide each year, mainly in Africa and Asia. Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent this disease transmitted from animals to humans. Every year, more than 15 million people worldwide are vaccinated after exposure to prevent the onset of rabies. But that is not enough. The lack of funds devoted to preventive vaccination would cost the lives of thousands of children each year, alarms the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). An infuriating observation when we know that only a tenth of the sum allocated to patient care would make it possible to vaccinate all vulnerable populations (exposed to a case of rabies).
“Even when we demonstrate that the cost of vaccination represents 10% of the cost of care for patients bitten by dogs worldwide, we are unable to convince all the donors” annoys Dr. Bernard Vallat, director general of the OIE at its annual congress in Paris. He compares the contrast between the lack of investment against rabies and that granted to research against Coronavirus (MERS-CoV): “We have 70,000 children who die of rabies every year in terrible suffering and the media is indifferent to it”.
Another source of concern relayed by the OIE concerns the quality of the vaccines administered. Some products used on dogs and other animals are of poor quality and can make the situation worse by inoculating the animal with disease.
The rabies virus is transmitted to humans through the saliva of animals (domestic or wild) infected during a bite or scratch. Vaccination, performed within a few hours of contact with a suspected animal, helps prevent the onset of rabies and death.
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