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Krishna Prasad Acharya, Sarita Phuyal, The challenges of imported rabid animals to rabies-free and rabies-eliminating countries, Journal of Travel Medicine, Volume 32, Issue 2, March 2025, taae146, https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taae146
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Countries all over the world are working to eliminate dog-medicated human rabies by 2030. To achieve this goal, huge resources have been invested in preventing and controlling rabies through mass dog vaccination, surveillance and effective dog population management. While some countries have successfully eliminated rabies, others continue to grapple with rabies where it remains a major public health concern.
Despite the elimination of rabies, countries that are free from rabies are under threat of incursion of rabies from rabies endemic countries through spillover,1 illegal importation of dogs or armed conflicts such as the Russo–Ukrainian war2 and establishment of rabies there. This incursion may create a barrier to eliminating rabies. For instance, several rabies-free countries in the European Union,3 Switzerland,3 USA,4 Canada and UK5 have reported cases where canine rabies was introduced via illegal importation of infected animals from rabies-endemic regions (Table 1). Between 2006 and 2019, a total of 18 travel-related human rabies cases were reported in Europe; of these, 38.89% (7/18) were infections contracted in Southern Asia (e.g. India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), primarily through dog bites.6 These incidents highlight the risk of rabies reintroduction into rabies-free and rabies-eliminating countries.
