COMMUNITY
The Alliance for Rabies Control was founded to meet the need for a multi-disciplinary group to focus efforts on combating this terrible disease.
We are committed to building a strong and effective community combining the efforts of everyone with an interest in rabies control. Our community includes; rabies control workers, veterinarians, healthcare workers, rabies experts, international health organizations, wildlife conservationists, the general public, rabies vaccine manufacturers and animal lovers. We are also committed to working beyond our organization with other partners to achieve our mission to prevent human rabies deaths and to alleviate the burden of rabies in animal species. By working together we can generate awareness of rabies, educate people about correct preventative methods and start to influence disease control policy at both national and international levels. We believe that already the Alliance's community has made great strides towards our mission.
An excellent example of what our combined community can acheive is our World Rabies Day campaign. This has a separate website, worldrabiesday.org, where all the details of past and current campaigns can be found. There is information on the more than 40 partner organizations that are working together with the Alliance to raise awareness and funds for rabies control, and a short brochure outlining the achievements of the campaign so far. World Rabies Day 2007 was marked by hundreds of events in more than 74 countries, with media outreach that we estimate reached more than 54.3 million people worldwide. This is an astonishing acheivement for an inaugural campaign and was only possible due to the combined efforts of many, many individuals and organizations.
The Alliance was instrumental in setting up an informal 'Partners for Rabies Prevention' group. This group brings together leaders in the field of rabies prevention and control from all the major international agencies involved in rabies including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the WHO rabies collaborating centres, research scientists, representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and representatives from industry.
Partly as result of the Alliance's work, On 25 June 2008, the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, the GAVI Alliance, approved a plan that will prioritize their support of new and underused vaccines to fight deadly disease in the developing world, including rabies.
We provide several opportunities to our community:
To learn about rabies and the Alliance's work though our website and our Newsletter, delivered every 2-3 months via email.
To discuss rabies control issues on our online discussion board. Here members can view, ask and respond to questions and opinions on any issue realted to rabies control.
To donate in one of several ways to our efforts.
To educate, using the World Rabies Day bank of rabies education materials suitable for the public, pet owners, children, teachers, veterinarians, and health workers.
To volunteer, by organising an event to mark World Rabies Day, or to offer other skills or services that we can use.
To join our community and help us prevent rabies, please complete the sign-up sheet on our Newsletter page.
