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Sometimes the interests of humans and animals are the same, but humans have to save the animals first. Worldwide, about 59,000 people a year die from rabies, most in Africa and Asia, 99 percent of them because they were bitten by a rabid dog. About 40 percent of the victims are children, according to the World Health Organization, which has announced a campaign to reduce human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies across the globe to zero by 2030. The W.H.O. estimates the death toll in India at about 20,000 a year.
Mission Rabies, which is part of Worldwide Veterinary Service and supported partly by Dogs Trust Worldwide, both nonprofits, has targeted Goa as a place to demonstrate the viability of its program to stop the spread of canine rabies. It spends about $300,000 a year and has vaccinated 100,000 dogs a year since 2017, about 50,000 a year before that. Deaths of people from rabies in Goa fell to zero last year from 15 in 2014, when the campaign started. There are none so far in 2019.
The program has gained the full support of the state government, which now contributes about $70,000 per year. And its work is widely recognized as effective. Attaining global eradication is the goal of anti-rabies organizations, but most see it as an aspiration, not a likely achievement. Not because the science is difficult, or the practical methods are unproven. Medically, rabies is easy to prevent, in dogs and people. Organizationally, the path to stopping rabies is well understood. But, like all public health problems, rabies control depends on large and continuing government action. Eradication of canine rabies in a dog population, which is how human deaths drop to zero, requires a long-term commitment. To reach zero human deaths the 120 countries in which the disease is endemic would need to find the money and act efficiently, now.
