Current Status of Rabies and Its Eradication in Eastern and Southeastern Europe

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current status of rabies in Europe, with special emphasis on Croatia and Southeast and East Europe. Due to the systematic implementation of a rabies eradication program by oral vaccination of wild animals, by the end of the 20th century, most West and Central European countries were rabies-free. The EU goal was to eradicate rabies in wildlife and domestic animals by 2020. No matter how achievable the goal seemed to be, the disease is still present in the eastern part of the EU, as was notified in 2020 by two member states-Poland and Romania. Croatia has been rabies-free for the last seven years but given that it borders a non-EU country in which a case of rabies was confirmed in 2020, it will continue to contribute to the maintenance of the rabies-free region. A rabies-free EU can only be achieved by continuous oral vaccination, coordination and a regional approach. The prevention of reintroductions from bordering countries in which rabies has not been eradicated yet, and the support for the eradication efforts made by these countries, are goals still pending.

Keywords: Croatia; Southeast Europe; bat rabies; oral rabies vaccination (ORV); sylvatic rabies.

Figure 1

RABV transmission and perpetuation within the population of the primary carnivore reservoir host (red fox). From the primary reservoir, the virus is sporadically transmitted to other wild and domestic animals and to humans. Domestic and wild carnivores (green shaded circles) also sporadically transmit RABV to humans and other domestic animals.

Figure 2

Timeline of the most important events related to the elimination of sylvatic rabies in European territory.

Figure 3

Geographical distribution of the reported rabies cases caused by RABV, and ORV programs running on European territory, in 2020.