Rabies kills 59,000 people annually: WHO

Rabies, passed to humans primarily through dog bite, is always fatal by the time its symptoms show up but is entirely preventable.

Washing wounds thoroughly with soap and water after a bite is an effective way of preventing infection, while both pre-exposure and post-exposure vaccinations for humans exist. Mass vaccinations of dogs, which transmit 95 per cent of rabies cases to humans, can eliminate the disease.

An estimated 59,000 people die from rabies across the world each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with around 90 per cent of these among children in rural areas of Africa and