World Rabies Day has been celebrated for the first time in Botswana this year.
This worldwide commemoration, taking place every year on September 28th, is an initiative of the global Alliance for Rabies Control (ARC) and is officially endorsed by the OIE. This year’s event was co-organised by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the Gaborone City Council, the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks, as well as the OIE, the FAO and AU-IBAR, represented in Gaborone as the Regional Animal Health Centre for Southern Africa.
World Rabies Day WRD
Around 100 participants took part in a march from the Ministry of Agriculture to the grounds of the Gaborone Secondary School where throughout the day, speeches were held, information provided to the public and pets vaccinated against rabies. Rabies is a disease of domestic animals and wildlife still present in Botswana, despite considerable efforts to vaccinate dogs and other susceptible pets and livestock. As pointed out by the FAO ECTAD Representative, the disease still kills around 55,000 people worldwide every year, of which almost half (24,000) in Africa. All of these victims are infected by rabid animals
All pictures (c) M. Samson (Demographix) 2010, unless mentioned otherwise.
