Today is World Rabies Day, a global cooperative effort to spread the word about rabies as a risk to human and animal health.

The World Rabies Day effort began in 2006, when a group of researchers and professionals formed a global Alliance for Rabies Control. They created and began inviting partners to join the World Rabies Day initiative, which now involves human and animal health partners at the international, national, state/provincial, and local levels. The goal of this outreach is to mobilize awareness and resources in support of human rabies prevention and animal rabies control.

With the initial goal of engaging 55,000 people to take action, one for each person who dies each year from rabies, the inaugural campaign on Sept. 8, 2007, saw participation of nearly 400,000 individuals from at least 74 countries. The overwhelming response was an important step forward for rabies prevention and control and further illustrates the widespread recognition of the need for action to control this easily preventable disease.

Rabies is a viral disease that can be transmitted to animals and humans. The disease is transmitted mainly by bite, but exposure can also occur through contamination of broken skin or mucous membranes with saliva from an infected animal. Once neurologic symptoms of the disease develop, rabies is fatal to both animals and humans