{"id":128167,"date":"2025-03-12T09:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/animal\/how-we-made-goa-indias-1st-rabies-controlled-state\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T09:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:58:16","slug":"how-we-made-goa-indias-1st-rabies-controlled-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=128167","title":{"rendered":"\u2018How We Made Goa India\u2019s 1st Rabies-Controlled State\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Despite being preventable by a vaccine, rabies \u2014 a viral zoonotic disease \u2014 is responsible for claiming the lives of at least one person every half an hour in India and accounts for 36 percent of global rabies-related deaths each year. Though most cases often go unreported due to a lack of awareness, with prompt and appropriate medical care, these lives could have potentially been saved.<\/p>\n

Dogs are the source of most human rabies deaths contributing up to 99 percent of all rabies transmissions to humans. In India, an increase in aggression among dogs has also been observed post-pandemic \u2014 probably resulting from food shortages, abandonment of pets, and a decrease in human\u2013dog interaction (see map<\/em>).<\/p>\n

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Over the years, Goa has taken several measures to control the fatal disease <\/a>and has become the first rabies-controlled state in the country. Thanks to a decade-old campaign started by an international non-profit called Mission Rabies in collaboration with the state government.<\/p>\n

With a focus on mass dog vaccination, community education about rabies, and enhanced rabies surveillance in the state, Goa has managed to curb rabies-related cases from 100 to 1 in the past five years.<\/p>\n

In conversation with The Better India<\/strong>, veterinarian Dr Gowri Yale associated with the campaign says, \u201cGoa is estimated to have 1.5 lakh dogs. We have been able to vaccinate 70 percent dogs including owned and stray dogs repeatedly every year. This has helped prevent the rabies transmission<\/a> in the dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have rabies in Goa anymore. We are only getting cases from border areas of Maharashtra. Last year, we had three cases. This year, so far, we had one as compared to the 100 that we would get in 2018. This is not so shocking because metropolitan cities report up to 500 cases a year,\u201d adds the technical manager.<\/p>\n

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With a focus on mass dog vaccination, Goa has managed to curb rabies-related cases, says Dr Gowri.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Dr Gowri (38), who has been working in the field of rabies for the past 13 years, says rabies is the only fatal disease that does not have a treatment to date. \u201cIn any other disease, people recover. But rabies eventually results in death. India has many incidences of such deaths whereas other countries have already eliminated this disease long ago i.e. in the 1800s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Goa is a tourism hub <\/a>with at least 34 lakh domestic and foreign tourists travellers, the incidences of rabies-related deaths and tourists being at the receiving end had been a drawback.<\/p>\n

Recalling one such incident, Dr Murugan Appupillai, director of education at Mission Rabies, says, \u201cOnce a tourist from the UK got bitten by a dog. By the time she reached the UK, it was too late for treatment and she died. But after the introduction of this programme, Goa has now become a safe haven for tourists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaccinating one lakh dogs annually<\/h2>\n

Initially, Mission Rabies started its project in Goa in 2013 when the non-profit did a pilot in eight cities including Mumbai, Madurai, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa, and Thiruvananthapuram to eradicate the zoonotic disease. \u201cBut Goa was the only state that was motivated to take the project forward. In 2015, we signed an MoU with the state government,\u201d says Gowri, who has been working with the non-profit since 2016.<\/p>\n

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