Development of harmonised schemes for monitoring and reporting of rabies in animals in the European Union

Rabies is a notifiable disease in animals in the European Union. Despite the existence of several recommendations made by international organizations for rabies control, surveillance and monitoring of rabies in animals vary greatly between Member States. In this report recommendations are proposed for improving and harmonising rabies surveillance and reporting in animals in Europe. An adequate system of surveillance should be in place in all countries, whatever the rabies status (rabies-free and infected countries). Surveillance should be evenly distributed in time and space and should target animals suspected of having contracted the disease. All countries should report both positive and negative results of rabies diagnosis. For countries involved in oral rabies vaccination programmes (infected as well as rabies-free countries), the monitoring of rabies vaccination, based on investigating hunted animals from vaccinated areas, should be undertaken for assessing the efficacy of these programmes. The standardisation of diagnostic reference techniques and new confirmatory tests (such as Polymerase Chain Reaction) used in European Union is recommended. A national bat rabies surveillance network should be established in all European countries based on the testing of sick, rabies-suspect or dead bats of all bat species for lyssavirus infections. The Rabies Bulletin Europe is recommended as the basis for the reporting scheme of animal rabies in Europe with additional information to improve the existing data collection system and monitoring of rabies trends over time. Veterinary authorities should also report cases regularly to the OIE database interface.