Veterinary Services Department creates rabies awareness
World Rabies Day is an annual event established by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) with the goal of global elimination of rabies by 2030.
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It is celebrated on September 28, 2024, every year. The day is the anniversary of the death of Louis Pasteur, who developed the first rabies vaccine and laid the foundations for rabies prevention.
Rabies is a global public health problem. It is estimated to cause over 55,000 human deaths annually worldwide with 56 per cent of these global human deaths in Africa.
At a Greater Accra prevention awareness programme at La as part of the 2024 World Rabies Day Celebrations, the Regional Veterinary Officer, Dr Joseph Abuh, said deaths due to rabies were underreported worldwide and it remained a neglected disease.
Rabies outbreaks and deaths, he said, were hugely underreported in the country although both the animal and public health sectors were actively reporting on cases that came to their attention.
He said statistics from the Ghana Health Service indicated that between January 2020 and December 2023 over 600 suspected rabies cases with over 70 deaths were reported among humans.
Also, he said the Veterinary Services Department (VSD) confirmed over 500 rabies-positive cases among dogs within the same period.
According to him, the Greater Accra Region was the second most affected region with over 150 confirmed dog rabies cases in the country between 2018 and 2024.
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In 2023, he said the region recorded human deaths due to rabies at Dansoman, Ashalaja and Ada East. Also, he said there were two positive rabies cases at La and “fortunately it did not lead to human rabies due to early reporting and rapid response by the One Health stakeholders”.
“We also investigated a bull that was bitten by a rabid puppy. As a result of the investigation and its confirmation as positive, 15 persons who came into contact with the puppy and the bull were traced and advised to seek medical attention,” he added.
World Rabies Day
World Rabies Day is held yearly with hundreds of thousands of people organising and participating in events that seek to reinforce awareness of rabies prevention and the fight against zoonotic diseases.
The theme for this year’s World Rabies Day is “Breaking Rabies Boundaries,” Dr Abuh said this was the time to do away with barriers limiting efforts to achieve the global goal of zero rabies deaths by 2030.
He said to achieve the goal of rabies elimination, there was a need to break a spectrum of boundaries including disease silos saying “We have to align our efforts to break through boundaries between diseases and foster integrated approaches. Rabies is one of the Neglected Tropical Diseases and must be given the needed attention as given to others”.
Also, he said there was a lack of one-health collaboration and called for breaking the boundaries between sectors to highlight the vital role of the one-health approach and promote joint action across sectors to tackle rabies comprehensively.
Another boundary he said was insufficient cooperation which he said hindered collaboration among stakeholders on local, national and international levels.
Barriers
Mr Abuh was of the view that in Ghana, the greatest barrier to achieving zero human deaths due to rabies by 2030 was the inadequate budgetary allocation to the animal health sector saying VSD at all levels was currently understaffed and under-resourced and added that veterinary infrastructure across the country was in deplorable states.
He said as the world celebrated World Rabies Day, its elimination in Ghana could only be achieved through well-coordinated mass dog vaccinations, targeting 70 per cent of the dog population annually for at least five years.
He, therefore, called on the government, stakeholders and development partners to help break the rabies boundaries that might hinder the achievement of the target set by GARC by providing resources for a well-coordinated annual national mass and free anti-rabies campaigns from now to 2030.