World Rabies Day 2013: A global opportunity for people to focus on rabies prevention
World Rabies Day 2013 is this Saturday, Sept. 28.
In it’s sixth year, started in 2007, the purpose of World Rabies Day is to raise awareness about the impact of human and animal rabies, how easy it is to prevent it, and how to eliminate the main global sources.
The campaign is coordinated by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, a non-profit organization with headquarters in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Though a relatively rare cause of death in the United States, 55,000 people die globally from this dreaded disease, mostly in Africa and Asia. That’s at rate of one person every 10 minutes.
And that shouldn’t be the case because rabies in humans is 100% preventable through prompt and appropriate medical care.
Rabies is a viral disease that is transmitted through the saliva or tissues from the nervous system from an infected mammal to another mammal.
Rabies is a zoonotic disease. Zoonotic diseases can pass between species. Bird flu and swine flu are other zoonotic diseases.
The rabies virus attacks the central nervous system causing severely distressing neurological symptoms before causing the victim to die.
Rabies is the deadliest disease on earth with a 99.9% fatality rate.
To donate to the Global Alliance for Rabies Control and their work to prevent rabies, click here.
There are events going on around the globe on or around Sept. 28, click here to see the list.
For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page
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