When I was in veterinary school, I was introduced to Christian Veterinary Mission (https://cvm.org/ ). I knew they offered opportunities to travel to various countries and to participate in valuable work to help impoverished communities throughout the world. They would provide veterinary care and education to help primarily livestock at that time while sharing Christianity. I was determined that one day I would participate in one of their short-term mission trips.
I have continued to follow Christian Veterinary Mission over the years but life seemed to have other plans for my time and I have still not made it on one of their trips. I have supported them in other ways such as their Remember A Pet program and with prayer. I am excited that a young veterinary student that I know well has recently been on a trip with them and had a wonderful experience.
There are many veterinary groups doing wonderful things throughout the world. In the United States we offer groups who offer low cost services to help with population control and vaccines. In my travels I have talked about going to various areas and setting up spay and neuter clinics to help with the dog overpopulation I have seen and discussed the issues with locals in areas like Cusco, Peru and all over Portugal. I have a veterinary friend who has travelled with groups to do this.
Around 5 years ago I became acquainted with Mission Rabies https://missionrabies.com/ ) and I was instantly intrigued. I had felt a calling years ago to some type of mission work and now I thought I had really found my calling.
When I was a child Old Yeller was the movie that broke your heart. So many people of my generation can probably say that is the first movie that made them cry. It was an old movie by the time I saw it, having been made several years before I was born and old enough to see it. While I did not grasp the full depth of the movie when I saw it the first time in my elementary school auditorium I did grieve for Travis and Yeller and I think that is when I developed a healthy fear of rabies. No one survives without rapid treatment.
I live in a state with endemic rabies. I have been vaccinated since starting veterinary school but the vaccine alone does not prevent you from getting rabies. It simply reduces your post exposure injection requirements. I still like to believe that I am protected if I were to be bit and not know that the pet had actually had rabies but I know I am not. My state requires doctors to report any bite to animal control and the pet must go through quarantine or testing. Testing requires euthanasia and head removal. If the animal is not available or the tissue is not handled correctly the bite patient will be given rabies post exposure injections. If I euthanize a pet and the animal has bitten anyone within the last 10 days, even if we know the pet is fully vaccinated and no risk of rabies, I am legally required to send out the head.
In my career I have been fortunate. The only animals I have ever sent out and received a positive rabies test on have been bats that my clients or their pets have been exposed to. I have had suspicions of rabies in the past but either the animal survived or we never had an opportunity to see it again.
So now I have found Mission Rabies. And when I first found them, the website quoted statistics that a child dies every 9 minutes of rabies. Wow. I wanted to make a difference. Their primary areas of focus at that time were in India and Africa. I had met a wonderful artist and his wife from Africa and asked them to use my business to hang some of their artwork for sale. They had agreed to donate a portion of any sale to Mission Rabies. Unfortunately, I was unable to sell anything. I had planned to host an actual art showing but I developed some health issues and then COVID entered our world. I did not forget about Mission Rabies though.
https://peterblackwellwildlifeartist.com/category/animals/
Last fall I was at a meeting and someone was making a presentation and including Mission Rabies in his presentation as he was soon to be going on one of their trips. I was excited and told him over dinner that I had reached out in the past and had been unable to get a response and then COVID put a halt on things. He helped me get in touch and my husband and I were ready to talk in earnest about this.
Originally, I had thought we would be going to Africa. Tanzania was already full. We wanted to go to Sri Lanka but were told it may be put on hold as they are watching the political climate there. Some of the other trips we had looked at had been changed already due to political unrest. Cambodia was open and I could make the dates work. I did not want to potentially miss out and see another year go by so my husband and I committed to this trip. And what a trip it is going to be. This is their most ambitious effort to date – the goal is to vaccinate the whole province of Phnom Penh. This will provide life-saving protection to 2.3 million people while vaccinating 100,000 dogs in 10 days! We will be going door to door and truly be making a difference in people’s lives.
Since I first learned about Mission Rabies their website has changed. It no longer says a child dies every 9 minutes. They have made huge strides in ending rabies through education and vaccination. India is the world’s hotspot for rabies with a third of all human cases occurring there. There have been no human deaths from rabies in Goa since 2018 and in 2021 Goa became the first Indian state to be declared a “Rabies Controlled Area”. More importantly the Indian government is now formally enforcing measures to control the disease.
This is why I am going – “Over 1 million children were reached in 2022 by our education teams.
Devastatingly, the majority of human rabies deaths are in children.
This is why our education programmes are so vital. We head into schools and communities, within rabies hotspots, to ensure children know what to do if bitten, the dangers of rabies, and how to act around dogs – in an engaging and memorable way.
Being equipped with this information means that if a child or someone they know is bitten by a rabid dog, they know what to do and can receive post-exposure treatment before it is too late.
No being deserves the excruciating death caused by rabies.
If you would like to support our life-saving mission, please consider making a donation today: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/elizabeth-fowler17?utm_source=copyLink&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=elizabeth-fowler17&utm_campaign=pfp-share&utm_term=8592a55ecf6748e9b99c1ac387a5cb90
I look forward to sharing our experience with you in future posts.