Targeted vaccination campaigns may be sufficient to interrupt transmission of rabies from dogs to humans (Photo: Jakob Zinsstag / Swiss TPH)
Although the disease is preventable, rabies continues to kill more than 60'000 people per year - mainly children in Asia and Africa. New research by Swiss TPH may pave the way to more targeted dog vaccination in order to eliminate rabies by 2030. The rabies virus is primarily (99%) transmitted to humans through dog bites. Thanks to massive oral vaccination programmes since the 1980s, rabies is now nearly eliminated in Europe. Indeed, the disease is fully preventable thanks to the availability of highly efficacious vaccines and human post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). Nonetheless, still 60,000 people worldwide die from rabies every year, often due to inaccessibility of appropriate PEP. In order to reach the global goal to eliminate dog-mediated rabies worldwide by 2030, integrated strategies, political will and adequate resources are needed.
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