Coping with COVID-19 should not affect progress against rabies in Africa

By Sharon Isaalah

Before the emergence of the newest animal-borne disease, COVID-19, the world was in the last mile of eliminating one of the oldest animal-borne diseases – rabies.

For around 4,000 years, humanity has been contending with this infectious disease. Rabies has the highest case fatality rate of any conventional infectious agent at close to 100%.

And it is almost always transmitted to people through bites from infected dogs. A vaccine for dogs was developed as early as 1799.

Widespread vaccination and other preventative measures have since saved an estimated 2.9 million human lives annually.

The canine vaccine is inexpensive and prevents transmission to people. But this painful disease continues to kill around 60,000 every year – often children under the age of 15 across Africa and Asia.

Part of the challenge is that rabies control has been a victim of its own success: with millions of lives saved and vast progress in recent years, momentum for the last mile is difficult to maintain, as the victims are often the poorest of the poor living in rural communities.

Now the world is the grip of a new pandemic which sets back the fight against rabies. Restrictions imposed to control the novel coronavirus outbreak, for example, have made monitoring rabies cases more challenging.

Community health workers would ordinarily be vaccinating dogs and reporting bites, infections, and deaths.

But many have been diverted to the COVID-19 response, while others have faced limitations on travel.

Many government and NGO programmes in Africa stopped for a period while imports of canine vaccines were delayed by up to three months in Malawi.

Rabies control efforts must innovate and adapt to protect the life-saving gains of the last century.

It’s important to maintain momentum towards eliminating deaths in the context of the new global health landscape created by COVID-19 by re-committing to surveillance, vaccination and education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened global awareness of the importance of health surveillance.

This is true in terms of cases of infection as well as vaccination levels.

Canine vaccination against rabies can only be effective if it is targeted at populations where the virus exists.

But it’s also important to track where vaccination has already taken place to monitor and avoid duplicating efforts. Both rely on accurate data gathering.

One solution during the pandemic has been to develop new “One Health” surveillance systems.

READ ALSO: World Rabies Day: Ondo Govt to mark free anti-rabies vaccination

These must link communities to veterinary laboratories and medical doctors.

The Pan-African Rabies Control Network, for example, gathers key indicators for more than 47 African countries so that both the animal disease and its risk to people are properly recorded by all those who play a role in protecting public health.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control has also pioneered a simple and robust tracking device, as well as a mobile phone application, to allow animal vaccinators to track vaccine drives in the field.