Nigeria Records 17 Rabies Fatalities In 22 Months

Nigeria has recorded 17 fatalities of rabies between January, 2021 and October 2022 and within the period, 53 out of 232 bite cases from predominantly dogs have been linked with confirmed cases of rabies in 11 states of Anambra, Bauchi, Cross-River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Ogun, and Plateau.

Director Federal Veterinary and Pest Control Services who doubles as chief veterinary officer of Nigeria, Dr Maimuna Habib has disclosed.

As of 2019, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that in Nigeria approximately 55, 000 people die each year from human rabies with rabid dogs accounting for about 94% of confirmed human infection.

According to Dr Habib, the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development is making several efforts towards control, prevention and total rabies eradication.

Among other efforts by the federal government, she said was that the federal government had conducted mass vaccination campaigns against rabies in all the geopolitical zones including deployment of E-data collection tool for real-time data collection from the fields and monitoring of the vaccinations.

She however noted that holistic efforts are still needed to combat and eradicate the rabies menace in Nigeria including proper coordination of the campaign and technical support from partners to achieve greater results.

She said, “There is expedient need to close the little gap existing in the One Health Structure at Sub-National level, especially with regards to rabies control to allow healthcare professionals from both human and animal sector take full ownership of the control and eradication strategy.

States government need to do the needful by intensifying house to house vaccination and awareness campaigns in the LGAs, towns and villages and dog owners must ensure that they renew their antirabies vaccine licenses by ensuring that they visit government veterinary facilities to for their dogs to take annual shots of the vaccine, which is entirely free”.