Santiago (GNP): Chile has become the first country in South America to receive World Health Organization (WHO) validation for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies as a public health problem. The recognition marks more than 50 years without a human case and confirms the country’s capacity to prevent the disease from re-emerging.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated Chile on the achievement. He said the validation reflected decades of commitment to public health and offered valuable lessons for other countries working toward the same goal.
The recognition follows more than five decades of sustained national effort. Chile recorded its last case of human rabies transmitted by dogs in 1972, achieved through timely vaccination access for those exposed to the virus.
That early progress was reinforced through door-to-door dog vaccination campaigns and community awareness initiatives. Chile has since maintained a National Rabies Prevention and Control Programme covering free mass vaccination, epidemiological surveillance and laboratory diagnostic capacity.
In recent years, the country has further strengthened its risk assessment systems. It has expanded community-based surveillance and introduced preventive vaccination in border areas considered at higher risk of reintroduction.
Dr Jarbas Barbosa, WHO Regional Director for the Americas and Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said the achievement showed what sustained regional cooperation could accomplish. He said it demonstrated that eliminating dog-transmitted rabies was both achievable and sustainable when countries maintained the right systems across sectors.
Chile’s Minister of Health, Dr May Chomalí, credited the achievement to years of public policy work, including pet vaccination and post-exposure treatment for people at risk. She said the result would not have been possible without the joint efforts of municipalities, zoonosis teams and local communities.
To secure validation, Chile submitted a technical dossier demonstrating sustained interruption of transmission. An independent international group of experts convened by PANAFTOSA, PAHO and WHO reviewed the dossier and confirmed the country met all internationally established requirements.
Chile’s success builds on decades of coordinated action across the Americas. Since 1983, human cases of dog-mediated rabies in the region have fallen by more than 98 percent, with only a handful of cases now reported each year.
The achievement also supports PAHO’s Disease Elimination Initiative, which aims to eliminate more than 30 communicable diseases across the Americas by 2030. Globally, however, the picture remains starkly different, with dog-transmitted rabies still causing tens of thousands of deaths each year, primarily across Asia and Africa.
Also Read: WHO Marks World Suicide Prevention Day With Call to ‘Start the Conversation’
Chile’s progress underscores the value of the One Health approach, bringing human, animal and environmental health sectors together to prevent diseases that spread between people and animals. As of September 2026, 65 countries had eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease, including seven in the Americas.
The rabies validation marks Chile’s second such milestone this year. Earlier in 2026, the country became the first in the Americas to be verified by WHO for eliminating leprosy.
Dr Tedros said, “Chile’s success offers valuable lessons for countries working to end human deaths from this preventable disease.”
