The WHO, on Saturday, validated Bhutan’s achievement. Bhutan has become the first country in the World Health Organization’s South-East Asia Region to eliminate dog-transmitted rabies as a public health problem. The mountain kingdom’s last rabies death was in June 2023.
The disease is endemic throughout the country except for the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands, and cases are reported from all over the country, the year round. Rabies is a viral disease that is almost always fatal if clinical symptoms appear. WHO validation recognises that a country has eliminated dog-transmitted human rabies and consequently through the absence of human deaths from the disease for at least two years, while demonstrating the capacity to prevent transmission from re-emerging. Rabies deaths are preventable. A two-pronged strategy is advocated globally- vaccinating dogs to curb the disease at source, and using post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) after a bite. PEP consists of thoroughly washing the bite area with water and soap, administering a full course of human rabies vaccine and, whenever necessary, rabies immunoglobulins.
It is estimated that rabies still claims the lives of approximately 59,000 people each year, with a third of these fatalities occurring in India, where it remains a huge problem with local bodies failing at animal birth control and vaccination programmes. About 96% of the mortality and morbidity is associated with dog bites.The National Rabies Control Programme aims to reduce mortality from rabies among human beings and progressively achieve the target of bringing rabies deaths to zero by 2030. This criterion was set out by the WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies in 2018.
