Bridgetown, Barbados - April 22nd, 2025 (PAHO) - PAHO and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) partnered to host the virtual webinar ‘PAHO Validation for the Elimination of Canine Mediated Rabies in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean’.
This webinar is one of the outcomes resulting from intense planning during the ‘Meeting on Accelerating the Elimination of Diseases and Improve Better Care for NCDs in Barbados and the OECS’, hosted from October 28 to 31, 2024, in Saint Kitts and Nevis. During last year’s meeting, Member States agreed to participate in required activities to validate the elimination of diseases, including canine-mediated rabies.
In her opening remarks to an audience comprising Permanent Secretaries, Chief Medical Officers and Chief Veterinary Officers, PAHO/WHO Representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Countries (ECC), Dr. Amalia Del Riego, commended the “operationalization of the one health approach,” stating that it was good for animal and human health to be represented.
While acknowledging that rabies is one of the deadliest diseases, Dr. Del Riego observed that it is also preventable. “Between 1970 and 2021, over 90% of all human rabies cases in the Americas have been due to dog bites. Therefore, we know what to do. We need timely vaccination of dogs.”
She added that access to post exposure prophylaxis for those bitten by dogs with rabies prevents human death, and this is medicine that can be made readily available.
The gathering heard that PAHO and its member countries has set the elimination of dog mediated human rabies as a regional goal, “a goal which is achievable in the Small Island Developing States”.
Barbados and ECC countries have not had reports of rabies in many years, but to establish a formal elimination status, Dr. Del Riego explained, a validation process is required: a surveillance system and protocols.
Francis Burnett, Head of Unit at the OECS, delivered remarks on behalf of Dr. Didacus Jules, Director General of the OECS Commission and Miss Cicero Simon, Head of Human and Social Division.
Burnett described the situation as “an ongoing testimony to the importance of multi-sectorial collaboration and coordination in disease control”, expressing gratitude to PAHO.
Dr. Janine Seetahal, Head of the Rabies Section Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, presented on the ‘History and Epidemiology of Rabies in the Caribbean’. Dr. Seetahal identified the three carriers of rabies – dogs, mongoose and bats – and recounted the first recorded case of dog transmitted rabies in Barbados in the 18th century, which was brought to the island from Europe.
Felipe Rocha, Technical Officer for Zoonoses and Veterinary Public Health Pan American Center for Foot-and-Mouth Disease and Veterinary Public Health for PANAFTOSA, PAHO/WHO, outlined the surveillance procedure and protocols.
Rocha reiterated PAHO’s Elimination Initiative. In 2019, PAHO Member States approved the Disease Elimination Initiative: A Policy for an Integrated Sustainable Approach to Communicable Diseases in the Americas, committing to eliminating more than 30 communicable diseases and related conditions by 2030.
The audience heard the fundamentals to avoiding canine to human transmission of rabies. Vaccination of dogs; vaccination of high-risk groups of humans; and surveillance to determine incidence of rabies cases.
