Global Alliance for Rabies Control

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control manages an international, multi-partner communications campaign, End Rabies Now,[8] to achieve zero deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030 worldwide. Many international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), have signed up as partners on this campaign.

In 2008, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control created Partners for Rabies Prevention,[9] a network of rabies experts. Partners include the WHO, OIE, FAO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vaccine manufacturers and NGOs. The Global Alliance for Rabies Control acts as the secretariat for this informal group. The Partners for Rabies Prevention created the Blueprint for Rabies Control,[10] a freely available practical guide used by countries in their national planning.

In 2015, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control established the Pan-African Rabies Control Network,[11] which includes governments from 37 countries. The network unites all sub-Saharan African countries and helps them to develop and implement effective rabies elimination strategies and monitor progress towards elimination. The Global Alliance for Rabies Control supports other networks, such as ASEAN in Asia, with similar capacity building expertise.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control works with local government partners on demonstration projects in the Philippines on mass dog vaccination, community outreach, education, diagnosis and surveillance.[12] These elements are integrated into national government programs, and the resulting data will inform policy decisions in other countries.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control and its partners have reassessed the global burden of rabies, and are working on the costs of rabies and the benefits of individual large-scale rabies control programs. The global burden of rabies is now estimated to be 59,000 human lives every year, with annual economic losses of around 8.6 billion US dollars.[13]

The first World Rabies Day (WRD) was organized by the two founding partners, the Alliance for Rabies Control (ARC) and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta (CDC), on 8 September 2007 with the co-sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/AMRO).[14] In 2008, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control changed the date to 28 September, as remembrance for the day of Louis Pasteur's death, for the routine recognition of WRD, an annual global day of awareness on September 28, spreading the message of rabies prevention to millions of people, in over 100 countries.[15] The Global Alliance for Rabies Control offers a series of free online courses through the GARC Education Platform[16] to provide communities and professionals with skills and knowledge to prevent rabies. Up to 60% of all rabies deaths are children. The organization's education projects reach children at school and outside the school system to teach them about rabies and dog bite prevention.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control, working hand-in-hand with governments, experts and communities, runs in-country training workshops for human and animal health professionals to improve diagnosis, surveillance and awareness. This has included diagnostic training for government laboratories in the Philippines, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho and Indonesia, and education workshops for teachers, community health workers, and vet technicians in Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zanzibar, the Philippines, Haiti and Cambodia.

With its partners, the organization has developed tools such as the Rabies Blueprint and Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination[17] to help countries develop rabies programs and monitor progress towards elimination. The Stepwise Approach was used by the Kenyan government to develop its national rabies elimination strategy,[18] and by all countries in the Pan-African Rabies Control Network[11] to determine their stage of progress and next steps needed to eliminate rabies.