Spain waged a war on anger for decades which it did not win until 1975. Malaga suffered that year and during the three following the last major outbreak of the disease in the country, in which two people died and more than 120 infected animals were killed, the vast majority of them dogs, but also several cats and at least two foxes. After half a century of relative calm, however, two very different international phenomena – the war in Ukraine and the circulation of the virus in Morocco – have now reactivated the alarms and focused on the mandatory vaccination of dogs, cats and ferrets.
Catalonia, the Basque Country and Asturias are three of the four communities that stopped imposing this measure on pet owners decades ago. Now, however, they have taken a turn in their strategy and have once again decreed – or announced their intention to do so – rabies as a mandatory vaccine disease for pets. Catalonia took its first steps this week by approving “the start of prior public consultation” of the measure in the Governing Council, according to a spokesperson for the Generalitat’s Rural Agenda Department.
Galicia remains the only community that continues without applying the provision, since in the rest of the autonomies it has never ceased to be mandatory. “We believe that the epidemiological situation of the disease does not require the vaccination of all dogs and cats. In Galicia, where vaccination has been voluntary since 1989 (more than 30 years ago), no cases have been detected during this period, which shows that the risk of rabies entering is minimal. In any case, depending on the variation of the situation, the appropriate technical decisions would be made ”, Xunta replies in writing.
More than 150,000 refugees from Ukraine have arrived in Spain in recent months. Many of them are families who have traveled with their pets, which has raised the alarm as it is the country in Europe most affected by rabies. This situation added to another problem that has never been solved but has experienced one of its worst moments in the last year: the arrival of infected dogs from Morocco to Ceuta and Melilla.
risks
In the second of the autonomous cities, a dozen cases have been detected since last summer. The most serious incident occurred in February, when a sick dog bit five people. Rabies is 100% fatal if symptoms begin to develop, so those who have been exposed to the virus from being attacked by an infected animal need to receive treatment consisting of the vaccine and an anti-rabies immunoglobulin.
The need to reset rabies vaccination across Spain has been a pressing demand from veterinary institutes for years. “It is an impossible cure disease, but easy to prevent. And the vaccine is the only effective way to fight it. We are very happy with the decision of the Basque Country, Catalonia and Asturias, and we struggle to understand that of Galicia. The events of recent years show that it is unreasonable to think that no territory is risk-free ”, says the president of the Collegiate Veterinary Organization (OCV), Luis Alberto Calvo Sáez.
Veterinarians warn that the end of the obligation has brought vaccination coverage to less than 20% in some communities. And they warn of the risk that this entails if there are episodes like the one that happened in France last week. The country’s authorities have identified in the department of Essonne, near Paris, a dog with rabies that had bitten several people. Investigations are still ongoing, but suggest that the animal was illegally brought into the country from Morocco. If so, it is very likely that he passed through Spain undetected.
Something similar happened in early 2020, when another sick dog was also identified in France.. Although on that occasion the owner initially claimed to have found the animal by the side of a road in Seville, the researchers found it much more likely that the dog’s origin was Morocco and that it had crossed Spain in a vehicle. . In 2013, another Moroccan dog bit four children and one adult in Toledo. In all these cases, the current legislation was not respected, which prohibits crossing the border between Morocco and Spain without a vaccination certificate. None of the exposed people ended up developing the disease after receiving post-exposure treatment.
A protocol prepared this year by the Ministry of Agriculture points out that the high incidence of the disease in Ukraine. “It is still the only country in Europe where rabies is widespread between animals and people”, says the document, which considers “the qualitative risk” that an infected animal can arrive if strict prevention measures are not followed with all animals arriving from the country, which includes quarantines, review of their vaccination status and revaccination. “All of this means that in the current context the undoubted effectiveness of having our native population of dogs, cats and ferrets adequately protected is particularly relevant,” the protocol continues.
Despite this, and beyond the crisis in Ukraine, Agriculture states that the “main risk” for Spain “has been and continues to be North Africa, a highly endemic territory and a frequent source of imported cases” in Ceuta and Melilla. “This is demonstrated by the current outbreak in Melilla, which has become endemic and difficult to control and eradicate, which has increased the level of risk for the rest of the national territory”, concludes the document.
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