On September 16, the Global One Health initiative will host a webinar dedicated to rabies from 10-11:30 a.m. EDT. The webinar coincides with World Rabies Day (on September 28) and features presentations from three experts. Ohio State's Laura Binkley will discuss the rabies elimination work performed by Global One Health. Anna Czupryna, from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, will discuss her rabies-focused fieldwork with dogs in Tanzania. Kennedy Lushasi, of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, will detail his work related to rabies disease ecology, integrated bite case management, and One Health surveillance approaches.
Learn about other World Rabies Day events going on in your neighborhood and consider joining the Rabies 360 challenge to help spread awareness and achieve the global target to stop human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030
Please note this webinar time is different than the regularly scheduled monthly Global One Health webinar.
Anna Czupryna is a postdoctoral researcher based at the University of Glasgow working in Tanzania and coordinating field research activities for the Rabies Elimination Project. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying domestic dog population dynamics in villages near Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Her dissertation research, “The Ecology of Free-Roaming Domestic Dogs in Rural Villages near Serengeti National Park," involved an innovative multidisciplinary approach that integrated demography, endocrinology, and public health.
Kennedy Lushasi is an Afrique-One ASPIRE PhD student in his final year. Based in Tanzania, he works with the Ifakara Health Institute as a research scientist. He has over 10 years of experience working with rabies prevention and control. Kennedy’s research interests are focused on the epidemiology and control of zoonoses, focusing primarily on rabies. He has been liaising with both healthcare workers and veterinarians to organize, implement, and evaluate mass dog vaccination programs, overseeing rabies surveillance work across southern and northern Tanzania. Kennedy is currently leading a pilot study on integrated bite case management, an approach for rabies control that links the human health and veterinary sectors in the fight against rabies. He also leads the public engagement component of rabies control activities in Pemba Island, Tanzania, where he works with community members, human and animal health practitioners, and policymakers to understand how they have been impacted by rabies and what they can do to prevent rabies from their societies through storytelling.