UVAS Workshop: ‘Rabies kills more people than dengue, bird flu’
Rabies is one of the most lethal zoonotic diseases (animal-transmitted), killing more people each year than H5N1 and dengue fever, Dr Talat Naseer Pasha, the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) vice chancellor said on Tuesday.
He was addressing the inaugural session of the one-day workshop on Awareness and Field Test for Diagnosis of Rabies. The workshop was organised by the UVAS Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. Dr Pasha urged all veterinarian, medical doctors, scientists and researchers to join hands with the UVAS to launch concrete efforts for the elimination of rabies. Dr Muhammad Irfan Zahid, the Livestock Dairy Development Department director general (extension), said that rabies was a fatal disease, caused by dog bite in 90 per cent of the cases. However, it could be prevented through proper vaccination, he said. He said government departments should evolve multidisciplinary strategies to educate people about the disease and its prevention.
(Read: Communicable disease: ‘Anti rabies vaccine is substandard’)
Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2011.
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