Time to end rabies now

The month of September is globally dubbed: “Rabies Awareness Month” and all health partners come together to raise awareness of and make advocacy for the elimination of rabies globally.

In Ghana, the World Rabies Day was launched at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra last Wednesday, with a call on health partners to help achieve the one-health approach initiative to eliminate rabies in the country.

On the theme: “One Health, Zero Deaths”, activities forming part of the global commemoration, which falls on September 28, every year, will be used to create the needed awareness, celebrate rabies prevention efforts in the country, as well as strengthen measures towards its total elimination by 2030.

Rabies, undoubtedly, is a deadly viral disease and is transmitted to humans through the bite or scratch of an infected animal, resulting in fatal encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), nervous system disorder and death.

Since the end of the free anti-rabies immunisation campaign in 1998, studies show that there has been a steady rise in rabies infections among dogs and humans in Ghana.

Indeed, between 2010 and 2014, public health facilities across the country reported that at least 22 clinically confirmed human rabies cases were seen at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra alone, while 123 clinically confirmed cases were reported.

For this year, the Head of Epidemiology of the Veterinary Services Directorate, Dr Fenteng Danso, said 27 rabies cases had been recorded, with 10 of the cases recorded in the Kpone Katamanso municipality in the Greater Accra Region.

The trend, if allowed to go on, can be very disturbing, for which reason every collaborative effort must be deployed to combat this major public health issue.

For us at the Daily Graphic, we are very disturbed that anyone who gets rabies dies, while more than 95 per cent of human cases of rabies are due to bites or scratches from infected dogs. It is also confirmed that transmission can also occur when infectious material, usually saliva, comes into direct contact with human mucosa or fresh skin wounds.

It is for this reason that we need to sustainably create the needed awareness and raise advocacy issues to check this rising health challenge.

According to Dr Danso, although many advances had been made to forestall a major public health issue, rabies remained a neglected, under-reported, untreatable and yet preventable disease with the highest case fatality rate of any zoonotic disease.

Eliminating rabies in Ghana, Dr Danso argued, could be achieved through mass dog vaccinations, targeting 70 per cent and above coverage annually for at least five years, followed by a maintenance phase.

Apart from mass dog vaccination campaigns, there must be intensive dog population management, the promotion of responsible dog ownership, quarantine and destruction of unvaccinated dogs, as well as prosecution of owners of such dogs.

We note with satisfaction that rabies elimination in the country is possible. However, to successfully achieve this target calls for all hands on deck to ensure that we vaccinate our dogs, report suspected rabies-infected dogs to the authorities and protect our children from coming into contact with or provoking free-roaming dogs, as recommended by health partners.

We share the view that it is only through the practise of proper waste and dog population management and preventing dogs from roaming freely in our communities that rabies, the oldest infectious disease of humans, can be eliminated from our country.

The time to act is now and all health partners must scale-up their collaborative efforts to deepen community engagement and participation to get the country free from rabies.

It is important to sensitise the citizenry that there is no shame in seeking health care after a dog bite.

It is believed that low awareness of the need to seek health care after a dog bite is claiming many lives. Fortunately, through prompt and appropriate medical care, rabies-related deaths in humans can be prevented.

Many countries have been declared free of rabies by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. We do not have any doubt that Ghana is equally up to the task to effectively perform its functions of prevention, detection and control of animal diseases, including rabies in the country.

Health experts have also opined that with adequate resources and diligent programme management, Ghana should be able to eliminate rabies. It is heart-warming to learn that the country has a draft work plan towards the achievement of the global target of rabies elimination by 2030.

This is the task ahead of us and we dare not fail.