Feature: China works to eliminate rabies

By Xinhua writers Liu Wei and Luan Xiang

BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China has stepped up efforts to deal with rabies, a deadly disease that kills 70,000 people across the world every year.

On Thursday, World Rabies Day, experts from World Animal Protection (WAP) said that the most effective method to control rabies was large-scale vaccination of pets and local dogs.

DOG VACCINATIONS

Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. Wild animals are the main host and vector of the virus. In China it is classified as a second-degree epidemic disease.

Thanks to more large-scale dog immunization and an increasing coverage of vaccinated pets in recent years, deaths caused by the disease in China are falling.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the number of human infections in China fell from 1,425 in 2012 to less than 600 in 2016.

A WHO study showed that when more than 70 percent of the canine population of a region is vaccinated, an effective immune barrier could be established to prevent spread of the virus.

"Only when the dogs are healthy will human life and safety be assured," said Yao Yue, director of the WAP canine program.

From 2013 to 2015, the WAP and China's Ministry of Agriculture conducted "Red Collar" pilot program for rabies prevention and control.

The project was developed in three high-risk areas in the country to implement large-scale immunization of dogs. When the project was completed, the rate of immune dogs in the areas reached 94 percent, and no case of human infection was reported over the three years.

RESPONSIBLE RABIES CONTROL

Contrary to popular belief, traditional practices such as the mass culling of dogs - especially when done without distinguishing infected animals from the healthy - actually reduces the proportion of immunized dogs and decimates established immune defenses.

"Irrational massacres have no positive meaning in rabies control," wrote Sun Quanhui, who works with the WAP, in a signed article.

"Increasing the vaccination of companion and work animals, regulating animal breeding practices, reducing and properly managing the stray population are the truly effective measures to prevent and eliminate the lethal disease from our concerns."

In cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan in south China's Guangdong Province, large-scale immunization has been carried out since 2005, and the immune dog rate increased from 38 percent in 2005 to more than 85 percent today. This has led to the number of human infections being reduced to zero in those cities.

In Dalian, a coastal city in the northeastern province of Liaoning, a police Canine Quarantine Center has set an example for effective and humanitarian rabies control.

Rescued stray dogs will be given treatment and vaccinations by a local charity, VShine Animal Protection Association, before being transferred to the Canine Quarantine Center where they are given shelter and fresh food, until they are adopted

Non-profit charities launched campaigns across China to teach the prevention and control of rabies, in hopes of eliminating the disease.

World Rabies Day is themed "Zero by 30" this year, as it aims to eliminate human deaths from canine rabies by 2030.

"Rabies is a fatal disease that is 100 percent preventable. Large-scale immunization of dogs works not only to save our country a vast sum of money, but also to prevent the spreading of rabies more effectively," said Zhang Yue, an animal welfare activist and founder of China's first animal protection charity AITA Foundation.