United Against Rabies collaboration: First annual progress report

Overview

This first annual report describes the progress made since 2018 when the “Zero by 30” Global Strategic Plan was launched. The country-centric plan is built on the premise that societal and political support are fundamental to the success of any disease elimination campaign.

Until recently, the global response to rabies was fragmented and uncoordinated. This first annual progress report demonstrates the collaborative impact of the four organizations of the UAR on national, regional and global rabies elimination programmes. Significant progress has been made towards achieving the three objectives of the Global Strategic Plan.

In addressing the first objective, the UAR demonstrated (i) increased access to dog rabies vaccines, (ii) improved medical care for cases of human rabies exposure and (iii) enhanced rabies awareness in several countries and regions worldwide.

The last 1.5 years have seen much improvement in the provision of policies and guidance towards effective governance frameworks for rabies elimination following the One Health approach. This is evident from, among others, the many global updates on technical standards, international expert consultations, position papers and technical manuals described in this report. The concept of One Health was central to the various programmes, missions and regional networks and meetings reported. The UAR overcame challenges and gained experience on working together in a One Health approach.

As the UAR steps up its engagement with the global rabies community and individual countries, commitment to “Zero by 30” has steadily increased. UAR is developing an advocacy strategy for the “Zero by 30” plan to enhance involvement with stakeholders. High-level commitment, coordination and promotion was essential to eradicating smallpox and rinderpest. In the case of the UAR, it is already evident that several major accomplishments would not have been possible, if not for this coordinated approach. This is encouraging and our challenge is to continue to secure societal and political support not only internationally but also nationally in every country affected by deaths from dog-mediated human rabies.