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MEDIEVAL JAINISM : CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT
Rabies is the most fearsome disease with which the rural worker and the poor living on the outskirts of the major cities must deal. In the Americas alone, losses to the livestock industry are estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The disease is widespread in nature, where foxes, skunks, opossums, racoons, wolves, and bats are often infected, while the relatively intimate contact which dogs have with these wildlife populations make them particularly vulnerable to exposure. To the country worker and barrio dweller of the major cities, the dog is constant companion, guardian, and member of the family. Throughout Latin America the canine population reaches extra-ordinarily high numbers ranging form one or more dogs for every five persons. Experience has shown that the problem is not so much one of reducing the animals—efforts at which civil and health authorities have failed in the past-but of protecting them by vaccination. The answer to the problem lies in better public health education and low-cost vaccination, together with the establishment of permanent rabies control and surveillance services.
The problem of rabies in urban, suburban and rural environments can be further compounded when a local community bridges both sides of an international border. Conscious of the need to find practical administrative and technical means to control rabies in such geographical situations, PAHO has assisted in developing a special programme of rabies control for the US-Mexico border. Begun in 1966, this activity is funded from the national health services of both countries : in addition, supporting services and budget from PAHO have been used to establish rabies control units in 12 of the main twin-city areas along the border. Over the years, the number of animal cases has dwindled from a high of 213 cases in 1966 to a low of 32
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