[weinzierl]

Congratulations! Rabies is such a scary disease but these vaccination campaigns do work. Germany, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria and the Czech Republic became officially rabies free in 2003 after many years of vaccinating wild foxes and all the red rabies warning signs of my childhood are finally gone.

[progbits]

Vaccination campaigns are great but can you explain how you can declare countries rabies free without doing the same for their land neighbors?

Last time I checked there were no border checks for foxes crossing from France, Poland etc. :)

Is the assumption they don't have suitable habitats outside those countries? Or how do you stop backsliding?

[quitit]

You are right: borders don't matter - in reality the disease is eradicated well beyond the borders. Also keep in mind that many animals aren't great travellers, especially so if infected by rabies.

Claiming eradication is based on continued evidence from robust and internationally recognised monitoring and eradication programmes.

See the "Methods" and the footnotes sections from this CDC page: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/resources/countries-risk.html

[londons_explore]

You have to keep vaccinating...

Luckily, vaccination by dropping meat from a plane is a pretty effective way to vaccinate all the wild animals in a wide area.

[samus]

Geographical borders probably help a lot. Stray dogs mostly stay around humans where food is much easier to come by, so there is probably no significant flow through the woods. And since the existing dog population doesn't suddenly disappear, there is no opening for strays from other countries to move in.

[tibbydudeza]

Did they not carpet bomb the forests with pre-vaxxed chicken heads ???. Rabies is terrible - dead man walking.