Saving lives great and small
Australian vets and vet nurses are saving human lives while improving animal welfare worldwide, says Maryann Dalton
AUSTRALIA is free of rabies, but tragically the virus kills about 59,000 people every year , 40 per cent of them children in Asia and Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.
Rabies also causes financial hardship when people have to pay for vaccination after bite wounds.
An estimated 5.5 billion people live at daily risk of rabies.
Rabies infection is caused by the rabies virus, which is spread through the saliva of infected animals by biting another animal or a person. It is nearly always fatal, but it’s 100 per cent preventable by vaccination.
Vets Beyond Borders (VBB) is an Australian-based international animal charity which helps to improve the lives of animals and humans in developing communities around the world, and its antirabies program has dramatically reduced rabies deaths.
The benefit of VBB’s work is demonstrated by the success of the Sikkim Animal Rabies and Animal Health (SARAH) Program in Sikkim, India.
VBB created the SARAH program in collaboration with the Government of Sikkim and international charity Foundation Brigitte Bardot to provide canine rabies vaccination, humane dog population control, community education and treatment of sick and injured animals.
As a result of the work of VBB volunteers and local staff over the past 10 years, this unique initiative has led to not only a dramatic reduction in the number of rabies deaths but also marked improvements in animal health.
VBB life member Dr Alan Sherlock of Victoria travels to Sikkim every year to work with the SARAH team, performing surgery, desexing, training young Indian vets, catching dogs, bird watching and exploring the remotest corners of Sikkim.
Dr Alan also writes superb emails home. In one of his letters, he said many pet owners decide to make the long and hilly walk when they hear the SARAH/VBB team is in the area.
With about 22 million dogs in India needing VBB’s help with desexing, it has to eventually be done by the locals.
The SARAH project has set the standard for the rest of India and shown it can be done. It just needs to be replicated across the rest of the country, staffed by enthusiastic young local vets and para-vets.
In countries where rabies is an ever-present threat to humans and animals, VBB runs its Community Awareness initiative, working with schools and community groups to increase awareness of the importance of kindness towards animals, how to behave around them and how to minimise the risk of rabies infection.
Last year, as part of World Rabies Day on September 28, VBB joined hands with Global Alliance for Rabies Control to raise awareness for rabies prevention in Australia.
Share the message, save a life!
We can prevent rabies deaths through increased awareness, vaccinating dogs to prevent disease at its source, and timely life-saving postbite treatment for people.
Through VBB’s VetMatch program, volunteer veterinarians, veterinary nurses and other animal welfare workers are deployed across the globe to deliver animal health and community awareness programs where they are desperately needed.
VBB launched VetTrain in 2009 in collaboration with the Animal Welfare Board of India and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (Government of India) to provide clinical training to veterinary personnel working with animal birth control and anti-rabies projects in India.
VBB also runs VetTrain courses in other parts of the world, including Cambodia, in disciplines including surgery, internal medicine, dermatology and diagnostic imaging.
Over the past decade, the program has developed a strong reputation for devising and delivering clinical training courses to refine the skills of veterinary personnel working with animal welfare projects in parts of the world where access to veterinary care is limited or non-existent.
Hundreds of vets, vet nurses and humane animal handlers have completed VetTrain courses in India as well as several other countries in the region.
Our goal is to make a meaningful and measurable difference to the emerging veterinary profession in these countries.
When funds or material donations allow, VBB endeavours to assist in the supply of desperately needed clinical materials and equipment to its partner organisations in many parts of the world.
VBB is also ready to help Australians, who are regularly subjected to natural disasters, such as bushfires, cyclones, floods, droughts and extreme weather conditions, which lead to considerable disruption and hardship in affected communities. These unfortunate events place a huge strain on resources to assist not only the human population, but also pets, livestock and wildlife.
VBB’s Australian Veterinary Emergency Response Team (AVERT) program, launched in 2015, has
volunteers standing ready to deliver prompt treatment to animals affected by natural disaster or outbreak of exotic disease.
All of VBB’s special programs depend on the commitment and effort of the organisation’s remarkable veterinary volunteer community.
But VBB Team cannot work to help communities and reduce the suffering of animals in greatest need without donations. Your generous donation would allow VBB to extend its much-needed, costeffective programs into more needy communities in the coming years. To donate, visit www.vetsbeyondborders.org/ donate-to-charity/