World Animal Vaccination Day launches

End Rabies Now campaign partner, World Veterinary Association, has launched an annual World Animal Vaccination Day to promote the role of vaccines in animal health. Dr Zeev Noga, Veterinary Policy Officer writes here about what the World Animal Vaccination Day hopes to achieve:

World Animal Vaccination Day was instigated by HealthforAnimals and the World Veterinary Association in 2016 to be celebrated annually on 20th April. World Animal Vaccination Day aims to raise awareness of the vital role vaccines play in protecting the health of animals and, as a result, people too.

Each year, World Animal Vaccination Day will highlight a different species.  This inaugural day will focus on the importance of cat vaccination and keeping feline vaccines up to date.

Prevention is better than cure and vaccination has proven invaluable for decades to prevent animal suffering and economic loss from disease, as well as to decrease the likelihood for zoonotic human infections.  Rabies vaccination for animals is an important example. Rabies causes approximately 70.000 human deaths around the world every year. More than 95% of these deaths originate from exposure to rabid dogs. Vaccination for the disease in dogs would break the cycle of its transmission from dogs and save the lives of several tens of thousands of humans globally.