| Vaccination is the only way to prevent rabies. |
Rabies is endemic. Analyzes carried out on biting dogs revealed a high presence of infected dogs in Antananarivo.
Rabies circulates a lot in Madagascar. To give an overview of the situation, Dr Véronique Chevalier, co-coordinator of the Rabies Control project in the urban commune of Antananarivo (Coramad), mentions a significant number of dogs carrying rabies among those analyzed at the Institute. Pasteur of Madagascar (IPM), the national reference laboratory for rabies. “When a person is bitten by a dog, they can bring their head to the IPM for analysis. Each year, more than half of dogs that have bitten test positive for rabies,” she said yesterday, during the opening of the symposium entitled “Rabies: sharing international experience to achieve Zero.” rage by 2030”, which will be held on October 8 and 9, 2024 at the Radisson Blu Ambodivona hotel.
Rabies is omnipresent on the island, particularly in Antananarivo, where residents must exercise increased vigilance. “Approximately half of the confirmed cases of rabies in dogs on the entire island come from around Tana,” underlines Dr. Véronique Chevalier. In September, dogs suffering from rabies were identified in the Avaradrano district, having bitten several people.
Little known
It is essential to get vaccinated immediately after a bite, because without treatment the disease is fatal. Indeed, rabies causes death as soon as symptoms appear, and it is estimated that around eight hundred people die from it each year.
The goal is to eliminate this disease. The challenge is significant. Rabies is still little known by the population. “In some localities, if a person shows symptoms of the disease, it is believed that they have been bewitched,” says Dr Maherisoa Ratsitorahina, researcher at Coramad. Furthermore, many dogs are not vaccinated. This project, co-coordinated by IPM and Cirad, and financed by the French Embassy in Madagascar, raises awareness to increase awareness of this neglected, yet fatal, disease. Its objective is to protect the human population by strengthening rabies surveillance, to improve vaccination coverage of the dog population against rabies and to provide knowledge on the canine demography of the urban commune of Antananarivo, essential for the rabies control.
Miangalya Ralitera
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