One health approaches to rabies

Rabies remains one of the world's most fatal yet entirely preventable viral zoonosis, claiming over 55,000 human lives annually, primarily across resource-limited regions in Asia and Africa. Traditional, isolated interventions often fail because they treat human exposures and animal outbreaks as separate crises. This article explores the transformative power of the One Health framework, which unifies human medicine, veterinary sciences, and environmental management. By shifting from reactive post-exposure treatment to proactive canine mass vaccination campaigns aiming for a critical 70% threshold, integrated surveillance, and wildlife ecological management, communities can successfully disrupt transmission pathways. Examining successful paradigms from Latin America, Bangladesh, and Nepal's progressive strategic roadmap, this paper outlines actionable blueprints to bridge inter-sectorial funding disconnects, harness digital field diagnostics, and achieve the global mandate of zero dog-mediated human rabies deaths by 2030.