Credit: James Gathany/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(NEW YORK) — Someone dies of rabies every nine minutes, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, offering a tragic note on the prevalence of the disease.
“A human death from rabies is a tragic but rare thing in the United States and most developed nations,” the CDC press release said, but is “just as tragic but sadly common in parts of the world where some three billion people are at risk of being bitten by a rabid dog.” Monday was World Rabies Day, prompting the CDC to call for continued progress controlling the disease in developing nations.
“For example, in Ethiopia, which has reported some of the highest rates of human and animal rabies deaths in the world, a project is under way to control canine rabies through activities such as education, mass dog vaccination clinics, spay-neuter campaigns, establishment of new laboratories to diagnose rabies in dogs, and training to show veterinarians how to safely capture and humanely euthanize dogs suspected of having rabies,” says the CDC.
The press release also touts progress in Haiti, where the CDC and partners held rabies control workshops in partnerships with the Haiti Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Public Health.
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