By: Alanna Shaikh 
Speaking of neglected tropical diseases that are better controlled in the wealthy world, let’s talk about rabies.
In the last 100 years, we’ve seen rabies deaths in the US go from about a hundred a year to 1-2 a year. This is especially impressive when you consider that the US has two lengthy land borders; it cannot physically isolate itself from foreign animals. Bats, in particular, carry rabies and cross borders at will by air.
It’s an interesting example because rabies control has been primarily a governance effort in the US, not a medical effort. Better rabies treatment is not the reason for the reduced number of rabies deaths. We know this because the number of cases of rabies has gone down, not just the number of deaths from rabies infection. This has happened even as rates of rabies in wild animals have gone up.
There are two components of the US rabies reduction effort: regulation of pets and control of stray animals. Firstly, every house pet in the US is required by law to be vaccinated for rabies. Laws vary state by state, but they all require rabies vaccination for household pets. Secondly, stray domestic animals are captured and either adopted out as pets or put to sleep. US municipal governments began to take these efforts seriously in the 1940s, after World War II, and you can see the rabies infection rates in humans in the US began to fall at that point. » Read more: Still barking
