Rabies still causes the death of tens of thousands of people every year. Knowing that dog bites are responsible for more than 95% of all human rabies cases, the eradication of canine rabies is the only way to end the disease’s animal-human transmission cycle. It is estimated that vaccinating 70% of dogs in zones where rabies is present can dramatically reduce human cases.

The World Organisation for Animal Health Director-General, Dr Monique Eloit, explains the work of the OIE carried out regarding the One Health concept, with a particular focus on the success story of the Philippines Rabies vaccination campaign, where 1,701,150 doses of rabies vaccines have been delivered between January and February 2016. These recent deliveries raise the number of doses purchased by a beneficiary country in collaboration with WHO through the OIE rabies vaccine bank to almost 8 million.

The OIE thanks the WHO Pandemics and Epidemics Diseases Department for authorizing the use of the interview’s footage recorded in December 2015.