28 September is observed as the World Rabies Day every year globally since 2007. It aims to raise awareness about the disease and bring together the efforts of the organisations to prevent and control rabies worldwide.
It aims to make people understand how rabies affects everyone.
The only way to protect yourself, your family and your pets from rabies is to get them rabies vaccinated as advised by the doctors.
It is also important that you keep your dogs away from animals while travelling that might be infected by the disease.
Though rabies is a preventable disease, there are nearly 59,000 human deaths due to rabies every year.
World Rabies Day is observed to spread awareness and educate people about the causes and prevention of the transmissible disease.
World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are working together to eliminate the problem of human deaths due to rabies by 2030.
History of World Rabies Day
World Rabies Day is celebrated on 28 September, which also happens to be the death anniversary of Louis Pasteur, who, along with his colleagues, developed the world's first rabies vaccine.
According to reports published in 2009, there were 120 rabies prevention events organised after 2007, 100 million people were educated about rabies and nearly 3 million dogs were vaccinated successfully.
Rabies is one of the deadliest diseases which is caused by the Lyssavirus genus of the Rhabdoviridae family.
Its not just dogs, rabies causing germs are also found in wild animals like fox, racoons, skunks and bats.
So, even if your pets are vaccinated, these animals carry the risk of spreading the disease to your pets and families.
The Rabies virus infects mammals easily, and once the virus reaches the brain, it can also turn fatal.
World Rabies Day: Theme for 2021
The theme for this year's rabies day is 'Rabies: Facts, not fears.'
COVID-19 has lead to the spread of misconceptions about various diseases and has raised doubts among people about vaccinations in general.
This problem has persisted for a long time with rabies. This is one of the reasons this year's theme is focused on rabies vaccinations and busting myths or misinformation related to rabies.
It is important that studies and research are based on facts. This makes it easy to educate the people about the prevention of disease, vaccination of the animals and making efforts to stop the spread of the same.
The word fear in this year's theme stands for three fears
The first one being the fear caused by rabies. Second is the fear of living in rabies plagued areas and third is the fear of dealing with rabid animals.
These fears come from the lack of knowledge about rabies or myths about the vaccination, which is why it's so important to seek facts from verified portals, online courses and spread this knowledge among the people.
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