Sunday 28 September 2025 will be the 19th World Rabies Day, an event which has been celebrated on 28 September each year since 2008 (the first World Rabies Day was held on 1 September 2007, but it was switched to 28 September in 2008 to coincide with the birthday of Louis Pasteur, who developed the first vaccine against the disease). This day is promoted by the World Health Organization, Global Alliance for Rabies Control, and United Against Rabies, which share the goal of eliminating Dog-mediated Rabies globally by 2030; Rabies is a globally distributed zoonotic disease (disease which is transmitted by Animals) a wild reservoir in a range of Bat species, but 99% of cases in Humans are caused by either being bitten or licked by Dogs.
Flyer art for World Rabies Day 2025. Global Alliance for Rabies Control.
Without treatment, Rabies is invariably fatal in both Humans and Dogs. However, reliable vaccines are now available for both Dogs and Humans, and with prompt treatment, Rabies is completely curable. The difficulty is that treatment must be started before symptoms of the disease emerge, by which time it is incurable and fatal, which can be a serious problem if people do not know they have been infected. To this end World Rabies Day aims to raise awareness of the disease, encouraging people to hold community events, get their Dogs vaccinated, and undertake training in how to prevent the spread of Rabies.
To this end the World Health Organisation has produced a series of videos about Dog-bite prevention and treatment, aimed at children, parents, and community healthcare workers. A range of courses provided by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control can be found here, while the World Health Organization provides a course, 'Rabies & One Health: From basics to cross-sectoral action to stop human rabies deaths', which can be found in English here, or in French here, and the Pasteur Network runs a course on Rabies on the France Université Numérique platform, available in English or French, which can be found here.
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