Updated rabies vaccine recommendations for travellers

Abstract

Many travellers are unaware of the risks of a rabies infection. Practice nurses are ideally placed to make sure they are informed, says Mary Gawthrop, as well as offer a vaccination plan, whether or not the traveller chooses to accept the course of treatment Rabies is an acute, almost always fatal virus that can spread to humans from animals, usually in the animal's saliva, and it is transmitted via bites or scratches. It is vaccine preventable and the World Health Organization (2018) states that rabies is found all continents, except Antarctica, with over 95% of human deaths from rabies occurring in Asia and Africa. All warm-blooded animals can carry rabies, but while dogs are responsible for the majority of rabies cases in humans, rabies can affect both domestic and wild animals. Of all the diseases that can spread from animals to humans (known as ‘zoonoses’), rabies is the leading cause of death, with more than 59 000 people dying from it each year worldwide ( Public Health England, 2018a ).