Theme: Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate.
World Rabies Day is celebrated annually on the 28th of September to raise awareness about rabies prevention and to highlight progress in defeating this horrifying disease.
Safe and efficacious animal and human vaccines are among the important tools that exist to eliminate human deaths from rabies while awareness is the key driver for success of communities to engage in effective rabies prevention.
This year's theme for World Rabies Day is Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate. It emphasises the two crucial actions that communities can do to prevent rabies. It also reflects the global target to eliminate all human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.
28 September also marks the anniversary of Louis Pasteur's death, the French chemist and microbiologist, who developed the first rabies vaccine.