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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2019 | Volume
: 63
| Issue : 5 | Page : 1 |
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Providing evidence for effective prevention and control of rabies in India
Mysore Kalappa Sudarshan1, Doddabele Hanumanthaiah Ashwath Narayana2
1 Founder President & Mentor, APCRI and Project Lead, WHO-APCRI Indian Multicentric Rabies Survey, 2017
2 President, APCRI and Project Coordinator, WHO-APCRI Indian Multicentric Rabies Survey, 2017
| Date of Web Publication | 26-Sep-2019 |
Correspondence Address:
Doddabele Hanumanthaiah Ashwath Narayana
President, APCRI and Project Coordinator, WHO-APCRI Indian Multicentric Rabies Survey, 2017
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/ijph.IJPH_410_19
How to cite this article:
Sudarshan MK, Narayana DH. Providing evidence for effective prevention and control of rabies in India. Indian J Public Health 2019;63, Suppl S1:1 |
How to cite this URL:
Sudarshan MK, Narayana DH. Providing evidence for effective prevention and control of rabies in India. Indian J Public Health [serial online] 2019 [cited 2023 Mar 23];63, Suppl S1:1. Available from: https://www.ijph.in/text.asp?2019/63/5/1/267773 |
Rabies is practically 100% fatal but is preventable through correct and timely use of modern rabies biologicals. India is the hotbed of human rabies as about 20,000 persons are known to die annually[1] that accounts to about one-third of the annual burden of an estimated 59,000 rabies deaths globally.[2] In December 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Organization for Animal Health in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization and Global Alliance for Rabies Control have targeted achieving a global goal of zero human rabies deaths by 2030, worldwide.[3]
In this background, in May 2017, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, through WHO India Office, New Delhi, after approval from the Government of India entrusted the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI), a pan India survey to capture the programmatic experiences of rabies prevention and control in the country with emphasis on human rabies. The first report of the survey was submitted to the WHO in December 2017 and the final report in April 2018. The findings of the survey were presented in July 2018 at the Twentieth Annual National Conference of APCRI held at Delhi that was inaugurated by the then Honorable Union Health Minister, Sri. J. P. Nadda. The full report and the executive summary of the survey are available from the website of APCRI vide www.apcri.org.
The APCRI and the survey core team gratefully acknowledge the technical guidance, advice, and financial support received from Drs. Bernadette Abela-Ridder, Team Leader; Lea Knopf, Consultant, Division of Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, and Dr. Ritu Singh Chauhan, WHO, India Country Office, for facilitating the project work. Our special thanks to Dr. G. Gongal, SEARO, WHO, New Delhi, for writing the guest editorial for this special issue of Indian Journal of Public Health (IJPH).
We believe in effective collaboration. In this perspective, the collaborative effort of APCRI and Indian Public Health Association through IJPH is a new dimension. The results of the survey and the presentations made in the APCRI conference are now published in this special issue of IJPH having seven original articles, two brief research articles, one commentary, and two editorials. This places the survey results in public domain with more visibility, better reach out, and readily accessible to policymakers, administrators, scientific community, and others guiding them to make right decisions for achieving the goal of eliminating dog-mediated human rabies by 2030. At last, we acknowledge the support and technical contribution of IJPH in bringing out this special issue of the journal.
 References | |  |
| 1. | Sudarshan MK, Madhusudana SN, Mahendra BJ, Rao NS, Ashwath Narayana DH, Abdul Rahman S, et al. Assessing the burden of human rabies in India: Results of a national multi-center epidemiological survey. Int J Infect Dis 2007;11:29-35.  |
| 2. | World Health Organization. Rabies Vaccines: WHO Position Paper Weekly Epidemiological Record, No. 16, 93, Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2018. |
| 3. | World Health Organization. WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies, Technical Report Series, 1012. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2018. |
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