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Notice to Readers: World Rabies Day --- September 8, 2007
The first World Rabies Day will be observed on September 8, 2007, with the theme, "Working Together to Make
Rabies History." On this day, CDC and its global partners will celebrate successes in rabies prevention and control, while
recognizing the challenges of global canine rabies elimination, human rabies prevention, and wildlife rabies control. Events are planned
in at least 61 countries and will include educational presentations, animal rabies vaccination clinics, rabies awareness
campaigns, and fundraising activities.
Worldwide, uncontrolled rabies in dogs continues to be the main source of human rabies mortality, accounting for
an estimated 55,000 deaths each year. In the United States, dog-to-dog transmission of rabies has been eliminated.
However, importation of dogs from rabies-enzootic countries still represents a risk for reintroducing canine rabies into the United
States. In addition, cases of rabies in U.S. wildlife have
increased recently, with bats as the leading source of human rabies
infections. In the United States, rabies remains a
potential emerging threat through adaptation to new animal reservoirs, translocation
of potentially infected animals, and inadequate vaccination coverage of domestic animals, particularly cats and dogs.
Around the world, the public health infrastructure, including local animal control programs, quarantine stations, veterinarians,
and clinicians, will play a vital role in preserving the status of
those countries already free from canine rabies and in advancing
human
rabies prevention worldwide. Additional information about World Rabies Day is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies or
http//www.worldrabiesday.org.
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Health and Human Services.References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
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Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
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the date of publication.
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