General Information on Rabies and its prevention:

• World Rabies Day is celebrated in commemoration of the Death Anniversary of Louis Pasteur, the discoverer of Rabies Vaccine.
• Human Rabies is a major public health problem in India. Rabies is a 100% fatal disease and yet 100% preventable with first aid, vaccines and Rabies Immunoglobulin infiltration.
• In India 20,000 die annually, 96% due to rabid dog bite.
• Estimated 17.4 million animal bites are reported in India – 50% are children below 15 years.
• But only 3 million people receive Anti Rabies vaccine.
• In India estimated Dog population now is 30 million of which 90% are not vaccinated.
• Our Institute is running a clinic for treatment of animal bites. We routinely administer Modern Safe Tissue Culture based Rabies Vaccine (TCARV) Intradermally (4 doses only) and Anti-rabies immunoglobulin in severe cases (class III cases). Most of them are dog bite victims.
• Anti Rabies Treatment is available in all the Government Hospitals in the Nilgiris District.

In the past 14 years no human rabies case has been reported from Nilgiris and Since 2008 no animal rabies cases has reported. Taking this situation into consideration PII, Coonoor organized a workshop in August, 2013 with Directorate of Public Health, Govt. of Tamilnadu to form guidelines for taking forward the prevailing situation of rabies in Nilgiris to declare Rabies free. A coordination Committee under the Chairmanship of District Collector with the Stakeholders from different health, animal husbandry, Forest, Municipal departments and NGO was formed. Due to the initiatives taken by PII, Coonoor and meticulous planning and efforts taken by the coordination Committee under the Chairmanship of District Collector with the Stakeholders from different health, animal husbandry, Forest, Municipal departments and NGO, Nilgiris is identified to have a strong potential to declare as Free from Rabies in the near future.

The Committee is periodically meet to assess the rabies in Nilgiris.

As per WHO recommendation, Zoning of Rabies free status has been clarified. Nilgiris come under Zone- A, area in which no human and no animal cases reported since 2 years. This will facilitate the self declaration of Nilgiris Rabies free.

In commemoration of the Death Anniversary of Louis Pasteur, every year we observed World Rabies Day on Sep. 28. In the morning at PII, Coonoor, Louis Pasteur statue garlanded by and 2 minutes silence is observed by all the Officers and Staff of PII, Coonoor.

Every year we organized a rally to promote awareness on the prevention of rabies. The rally started from PII, Coonoor and reached Coonoor bus stand. Officers and staff of the Institute and College students have participated in the rally. Placards carrying messages on the prevention of rabies among humans and animals were displayed, hand bills with messages on prevention of rabies were also distributed in the rally. Earlier in the day, hand bills in English and Tamil were distributed along with the newspapers in the district.

Further every year we organized quiz and drawing, essay writing competitions for school students.