♦ 01 September 2016 ♦

[Relayed from the OIE bulletin 2016-2] Following the consensus reached at the global conference on rabies in Geneva in December 2015, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and World Health Organization (WHO) have published a global framework for the elimination of dog-mediated human rabies, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and with the support of the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC). Their aim is to harmonise global action against the disease and to provide countries and regions with flexible and practical guidelines for reducing to zero, by the year 2030, the number of human deaths caused by canine rabies in participating countries. The proposed measures for achieving this target include mass vaccination of dogs in risk areas. The OIE has developed new communication tools to raise international community awareness of this zero human deaths target. See article page 20-21.