My mission as the veterinarian for the 734th Agribusiness Development Team stationed in Kunar province, Afghanistan  was an interesting one. For example, I was able to participate in a veterinary seminar together with 35 veterinarians,  for nearly all of the private veterinary practitioners in Kunar.

With the help of the provincial vet, Dr. Mohammad Ghalib, and the Cooperative Medical Assistance vet, Maj. Robert Paul, DVM, we presented numerous topics we thought would interest the Afghan vets. They were schooled on nutrition and parasitism of livestock, observed a canine castration, and two goats were examined post-mortem for pathology. The seminar was a celebration to these veterinarians who do not often come together in one room for learning.

I was particularly pleased to talk about a topic that is important to both the veterinary and medical communities. I have been working on developing a rabies control program for the province. Rabies is a disease that the world has known of for over 4000 years. As most people know it is nearly 100 percent lethal once the affected animal or person develops clinical nervous signs like delirium or headache and fever. But with today’s vaccines this same disease is nearly 100 percent preventable.

Many people, especially in the modern world, think rabies is an unimportant disease because they have never seen an animal or person with the disease. I have never seen an animal with rabies even after working in mixed animal practice for 26 years. But when I asked the Afghan vets each one said he had seen the disease. Ghalib remarked he had also seen a child die from it. In Asia and Africa over 55,000 people die each year from rabies and this number is likely widely underestimated. It is possible 100 times more people die but with poor medical care and limited public health services the deaths are not reported.

Human deaths from rabies are very difficult to watch and patients need considerable sedation which is often unavailable in the developing world. The veterinary doctors were strongly supportive of helping in a rabies control campaign. One remarked he viewed it as his duty to provide such services that would help the community. The best ways to help an Afghan community is through dog vaccination and education of the people about dog behavior and bite management. Children are particularly vulnerable and need to know how to prevent dog attacks. Rabies control programs are not easy to implement, but I left this meeting knowing my Afghan colleagues feel strongly about helping the people of their province.

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