Days Until World Rabies Day

About World Rabies Day

September 28 marks the anniversary of the 1895 death of Louis Pasteur, the French scientist who developed the first rabies vaccine, and was established by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control in 2007.

The World Health Organization estimates rabies causes tens of thousands of deaths annually worldwide, the overwhelming majority in Asia and Africa and the majority linked to dog bites, despite the disease being almost entirely preventable through vaccination.

The observance specifically promotes both human vaccination access and dog vaccination campaigns, since eliminating rabies in dog populations is widely considered the most effective route to eliminating human cases.

Modern rabies vaccines, developed from Pasteur's original 19th-century work, remain nearly 100% effective when administered promptly after exposure, a detail the day's messaging uses to stress the urgency of prompt treatment access.

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control also coordinates mass dog-vaccination drives in high-risk regions timed around the day, since a sustained 70% vaccination rate among dogs is generally considered sufficient to break local transmission cycles.