DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The East African Community (EAC) said on Wednesday rabies, a disease caused by a virus that affects the central nervous system and transmitted by bites and scratches from infected animals, kills at least 1,500 people in Tanzania annually.
"Most rabies victims are children and transmission is through dog bites," the EAC said in a statement ahead of the World Rabies Day on Thursday.
The mortality rate, however, could be higher because scientific experts believe many cases are not reported and, therefore, do not appear in official statistics.
The EAC secretariat will organize the World Rabies Day under a project being implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). The event is normally organized alongside vaccination of the dogs through the Rabies Vaccination Initiative.
Stanley Sonoiya, the head of the EAC Department of Health, said: "The World Rabies Day is a striking example for the importance of those close cooperation between human and animal medical professions and for the necessity of the one healthy approach, when preventing and controlling zoonotic diseases."
Fahari Marwa, head of the EAC Agriculture and Food Security Department, said the EAC secretariat strived to implement the one health approach in the EAC region.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses the importance of dog vaccination as the most effective intervention against rabies, decreasing rabies in dogs and having a direct impact on public health by reducing transmission to humans.
September 28 every year is observed to commemorate World Rabies Day, which marks the anniversary of the demise of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist and microbiologist, who developed the first rabies vaccine.
In marking the World Rabies Day, participants raise public awareness on rabies prevention and highlight progress in the fight against rabies that puts human and animal health at risk.
The EAC Secretariat in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) will vaccinate about 5,000 dogs across 20 vaccination stations in Arusha city on Thursday.
