Introduction
Rabies is a fatal infectious disease that affects all mammals, and new ways of eliminating it have to be devised, such as inventing a plant to vaccinate animals. Although present on almost continents except for Antarctica, the highest death records from rabies are reported from Africa and Asia. The reason for this uneven distribution of the virus presence may be the way people choose to deal with it. Developed countries aim at educating pet owners and children since they are the most exposed to animals which may be infected. Their communities build public clinics to ensure that everyone who wants to vaccinate his or her pet can do so.
Awareness
Canada and the USA are examples of countries that are well-aware of the implications of rabies, and therefore, they apply different strategies to eliminate it. Apart from proper education and holding clinics, they try to “reduce the prevalence of rabies in wildlife by distributing ORV” (“USDA Expands Field Trials of New Oral Rabies Vaccine,” 2016, para. 3). Oral bait vaccination is not the cheapest way of fighting the virus, and developing countries may struggle to find funding for such campaigns. However, they should at least provide their population with proper education and awareness level because people have to know about the threat and the implications of being infected.
Creating a plant that will vaccinate animals who ate it is a noteworthy idea of supplementing the already existing strategies of fighting rabies. As a precautionary measure, it will help people to protect their homes from infection, and I believe that it is worth developing. The other promising concept is DNA vaccination, the idea of which was introduced at the end of the twentieth century. It “has proved to be potent in eliciting cellular and humoral immune responses against a variety of infectious and noninfectious agents” (Shah et al., 2014, p. 883). Its advantages are low cost and relatively fast production, and since scientists have particular interest in DNA structure and properties, I believe that in the future DNA vaccination will be one of the most efficient ones.
Spreading
One of the most feared infectious diseases, rabies virus continues to spread despite society relentlessly combats it. New ways of decreasing the threat have to be implemented, and oral contraceptives are a prospective way of fighting the virus. Its extensive habitat and nearly 100% fatality rate has spurred the community to develop strategies of decreasing the risk of being infected. Previously, people relied upon the reduction of the rabies-infected population solely as they trapped and hunted animals that were suspicious and risky to society (Mähl et al., 2014). However, over time, people devised a new efficient way of fighting rabies – vaccination. Nowadays, it is widely used, and people vaccinate their pets and themselves while oral bait vaccination campaigns are held to deal with the wild rabies virus.
Controlling the Disease
Indeed, the most effective way of controlling the disease spread is by its prevention, and a rabies case is a vibrant example. A tissue-derived, the first rabies vaccine was presented in the late eighteen hundreds, and it was an attenuated harvested virus sample. It required a few doses to induce immunity and carried a certain risk of complications in the neuro system (Fooks et al., 2014). However, today similar way of vaccination is used in several countries since it is cheaper than a modern cell-culture-derived vaccine.
Although oral vaccination, namely bait drop, is efficient and widely used in developed countries, it is not capable of eliminating rabies completely. If scientists aim at stopping the virus spread, they have to devise new strategies to supplement the already existing ones. Adding oral contraceptives to the bait packs is a prominent way to reduce rabies distribution since it prevents already infected animals from breeding. The virus will stop with the infected animals’ death and will not find a new life in their children. However, another strategy to be employed is reducing the population of infected animals by strategic trapping, curing, and then releasing into their natural habitat.
References
Fooks, A. R., Banyard, A. C., Horton, D. L., Johnson, N., McElhinney, L. M., & Jackson, A. C. (2014). Current status of rabies and prospects for elimination. The Lancet, 384(9951), 1389–1399.
Mähl, P., Cliquet, F., Guiot, A.-L., Niin, E., Fournials, E., Saint-Jean, N., Gueguen, S. (2014). Twenty year experience of the oral rabies vaccine SAG2 in wildlife: A global review. Veterinary Research, 45(1), 1-17.
Shah, M. A. A., Khan, S. U., Ali, Z., Yang, H., Liu, K., & Mao, L. (2014). Applications of Nanoparticles for DNA based rabies vaccine. Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 14(1), 881–891.