FYI – just in case anybody from the ministry or other institution is to attend…

Best regards and nice weekend,

Silviu

Sent on behalf of Dr Nino Berdzuli, Director, Division of Country Health Programs

Respectful WRs,

An estimated 59 000 people die from rabies each year, 40% of whom are children living in Asia and Africa. In 2015, the world called for action by setting a goal of zero human dog-mediated rabies deaths by 2030, worldwide.

In the WHO European Region, many countries eliminated human rabies. However, human deaths from rabies are still reported in several countries of our Region and urgent actions have to be taken to make the European Region free from the rabies. Continuous collaboration across all sectors and disciplines responsible for health is required to maintain rabies free status and eliminate the disease.

Hereby, I would like to inform you that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Organization for Animal Health and the World Health Organization are jointly organizing a meeting UNITED AGAINST RABIES: One Health in Action—Partnering for Success which will be held virtually on 22 September 2020 at 12:00 to 13:30 (UTC).

The objectives of this meeting are to:

• announce the creation of the United Against Rabies Forum;
• discuss priority activities to progress with the implementation of The Global Strategic Plan to end human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030;
• elevate the cause of rabies elimination in relevant national and international institutions;
• generate commitments to action and mobilize funders.

Invitation and Agenda of the meeting are attached to this message.

We would be very grateful if you could widely disseminate this information among appropriate specialists from all relevant sectors in your countries. 

Should you or country colleagues require more information, please contact Dr Elkhan Gasimov, Technical Officer, Malaria, NTDs and other Vector-borne Diseases (gasimove@who.int).

We look forward to the participation of our colleagues to this important meeting.

Thank you and best regards,

Dr Elkhan Gasimov
Technical Officer

Malaria, NTDs and other Vector-borne Diseases 

Division of Country Health Programmes
World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe 
UN City, Marmorvej 51, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark 
E-mail: gasimove@who.int     
Tel: +45 45 33 69 62;  Mobile: +45 20 21 07 47