Rabies control strategy

This consultation sought views on Defra’s recently revised and published draft Rabies Control Strategy, which sets out a framework for how an incident or outbreak of rabies in England and/or Wales would be managed.

The Control Strategy describes the general control options that have been identified for the most likely scenarios for cases of classical rabies virus and the rationale for such controls. In general we have avoided prescribing exactly how and when individual controls should be applied as we need to retain the necessary flexibility so that each situation can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis appropriate to the particular circumstances.  We do however want to understand in a bit more detail the practicalities of the control options as there may be some scope in clarifying the circumstances under which they are more likely to be used, less likely or indeed ruled out altogether. We specifically sought views on the use of control options though we welcomed general comments on all aspects of the document.