10 October 2017 – WHO/ Egypt in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Population launched a social media campaign, on World Rabies Day, on 28 September 2017. 

The campaign aimed to raise community awareness about the principles of disease prevention, injury avoidance from an infected animal, associated symptoms and post-exposure measures. To achieve this, targeted messages were developed and used for the social media campaign to educate and inform the public.

Simultaneously the WHO country office in Egypt provided the necessary support to establish/strengthen the surveillance system for rabies in frontier/high-risk governorates. Surveillance data revealed that people in Egypt experience a large number of animal bites annually with more than 200 000 animals bites recorded each year mostly from dogs. On average 60 people die annually from rabies in Egypt.