THE MAJORITY OF RABIES VICTIMS ARE CHILDREN LIVING IN RURAL AREAS
“FREE PRISHA FROM RABIES”
DYING OF A PREVENTABLE DISEASE
IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!
EVERY YEAR, ≈ 60,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM RABIES
THE MAJORITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
READ THE STORY of
An EXPERT’ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH RABIES VICTIMS
IN MALAWI AND THE NETHERLANDS
MY FIRST CASE was back in 1980, in Malawi. I WAS ASTONISHED to experience a patient with the full clinical picture of which I have only read in study books during my medical training and that at the time seemed to be “a thing far away, I never should encounter”.
I WILL NEVER FORGET! SEEING A PREVIOUSLY HEALTHY BOY OF 10-YEARS-OLD, going through a dreadfully
short illness, which finally ended in death, for which the medical staff only could give SUPPORTIVE CARE. And, to see THE HELPLESSNESS OF HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, trying TO COMFORT THE SON as much as possible.
Recently, IN ALL 3 RABIES CASES, in The Netherlands, THE SAME FEELING OF HELPLESSNESS 
was present by family members and the medical staff involved, as the presumed treatment did not work out. Before these patients were brought into coma for treatment purpose, anxiety was present for the fact that they knew that the treatment option was unlikely to work out. For both, the family and the medical team involved, this experience had an enormous impact. Mental coaching had to be provided thereafter!
SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA & ASIA, PEOPLE ARE STILL DYING FROM A DISEASE THAT IS 100% PREVENTABLE, BUT 99.9% FATAL!
EVERY YEAR, ≈ 60,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM RABIES
IN FACT, ONE PERSON DIES OF RABIES EVERY 9 MINUTES
Why are so many people STILL DYING FROM A PREVENTABLE DISEASE in a time with so much technological advancement?
We live in a world where neglected diseases seem to be acceptable…
Rabies gains little attention of the world compared to other infectious diseases, while it definitely deserves more attention since it is a preventable disease that has been around for millenia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified Rabies as a NEGLECTED DISEASE.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR 60,000 PEOPLE TO DIE A YEAR????
A HORRIBLE TRAGEDY
A FULL 747 CRASH (∼430 DEATHS) EVERY OTHER DAY
Men, women and innocent children who will lose their lives, on their way to their holiday destination, their homes, loved ones, or their job obligations.
THE DEATH CASES OF RABIES IS NOT DIFFERENT!
We need one such crash every other day for a year to reach the 60,000 DEATHS.
STEP 1: STOP RABIES AND START EDUCATING YOURSELF ABOUT THIS NEGLECTED DISEASE!
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RABIES
THE DISEASE
Rabies disease is caused by infection with the rabies virus, which is transmitted to humans mainly by infected dogs and bats. Once infected, the patient will go through an inevitable painful death and currently there is nothing that anyone can do to prevent this from happening. Therefore, rabies is the deadliest disease known to humans. In fact, almost more than 99.9% of patients infected with rabies virus succumb to the disease.
SYMPTOMS
Typically, a person infected with rabies will develop some non-specific symptoms such as a flu-like illness several weeks or months after exposure to the virus. The clinical picture will progress to encephalitis with symptoms including irritability, agitation, aggressiveness, hypersalivation (over-production of saliva), muscle spasms, or paralysis. The most characteristic symptom of rabies is hydrophobia (fear of water). At the end state coma and death will follow.
PREVALENCE OF RABIES
Rabies is present on all continents, except Antarctica, with over 95% of human deaths occurring in the Asia and Africa. Approximately 60,000 human deaths occur annually worldwide as a result of rabies infection. In many countries, patients are sent home to die and consequently not officially reported as rabies death. Therefore, this number is likely to be an underestimation of the real mortality rates.
In fact rabies is a disease of the poor and considered a neglected disease. Although effective human vaccines and antibodies exist for rabies, they are not readily available or accessible to those in need.
RABIES KILLS
Rabies is preventable! Although we have a vaccine, people that need it the most, CANNOT AFFORD to be vaccinated.
Need to know more about our organization and our research on rabies?
Please download the brochure (AVAILABLE IN DUTCH):
Treating a rabies exposure, where the average cost of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is US$ 40 in Africa and US$ 49 in Asia, can be a catastrophic financial burden on affected families whose average daily income is around US$ 1–2 per person.
Why we perform rabies research
Reason one: Available preventive measures are too expensive
High rabies mortality in developing countries due to low vaccine usage as a result of high costs. Many of these infections could have been prevented or many infected individuals could have been helped if vaccine and antibody preparations were available at an affordable price.
Reason two: Lack of understanding in the disease mechanisms
We believe that no infectious disease that takes precious lives should be neglected! Our goal is to provide affordable solutions by understanding the way rabies virus causes disease.
Reason three: Increasing awareness
In face of the high costs associated with prophylaxis and post-exposure treatment, and the lack of symptomatic treatment, the best way to reduce unnecessary deaths is by increasing awareness about rabies and how to prevent it.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE, AND COME INTO ACTION
Help FIGHT RABIES!
-
Rabies treatment for “ALL”
"IMAGINE", a future where rabies is treatable.€815,00 donated of €60.000,00 goal -
Rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins: “Affordable” and accessible for the “POOR”
"Affordable" and "accessible" interventions for the 'POOR"€605,00 donated of €60.000,00 goal
WE NEED YOUR HELP
Rabies vaccines and antibodies: Affordable and accessible for the poor.
What EXPERTS say
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR RABIES RESEARCH PROJECTS
Rabies disease is a problem mainly in the rural areas of developing countries. It is important to realise that rabies NOT ONLY AFFECTS THE VICTIMS, but the whole community and prevention of rabies has a huge financial and psychological impact. However, vaccination against rabies consists of a course of minimum three doses, costing between 160 euro and 400 euro per person. Knowing that a large proportion of the population in developing countries has less than 1 – 2 euro per day, it is understandable that most people cannot afford vaccination and rather spend their money on food. Therefore there is a pressing need to develop affordable and more effective vaccines for prevention of rabies disease and in addition antibodies to treat people that were exposed to the virus.
PROJECT 1: DEVELOPING “AFFORDABLE” VACCINE AND IMMUNOGLOBULIN
What is the significance of developing affordable vaccine and antibodies?
Availability of affordable vaccines and antibodies will SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES. This is definately possible if we invest in the development of a platform for easy, inexpensive, high quality and mass production of vaccines and immunoglobulins. Such a platform can also be used for production of vaccines and antibodies against other infectious diseases.
What are our goals?
DEVELOP CANDIDATE VACCINES AND ANTIBODIES THAT ARE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ONES. It is a fact that the current vaccine is not potent in stimulating the immune response and therefore several doses of the vaccine must be administered. Our goal is to develop a much more potent vaccine for which only one administration is enough to provide protection.
PROJECT 2: DEVELOPING RABIES TREATMENT FOR “ALL”
What is the significance of developing a treatment?
For many vaccines it is an enormous effort to achieve high vaccine coverage in developing countries. It is therefore UNREALISTIC to expect everybody to be vaccinated. In addition, people coming from non-endemic areas are at risk of being infected with rabies. For these reasons IT IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE TO HAVE MEDICINES THAT WE CAN USE TO TREAT SYMPTOMATIC PATIENTS THAT ARE TOO LATE TO RECEIVE THE VACCINE. Availability of such medicines may save the thousands of lives.
THE MISSION OF ARTEMIS ONE HEALTH:
Our mission is to make a DIFFERENCE in the lives of humans and animals by performing innovative and translational research, with the ultimate goal to develop SAFE, EFFECTIVE and AFFORDABLE vaccines against neglected infectious diseases.
We encourage you to view some of the key problems in dealing with rabies versus the positive impact we envision on prevention and management of the disease.
SOME KEY PROBLEMS:
A. Lack of rabies awareness
ARTEMIS’ POSITIVE ROLE: Artemis is committed to promote rabies awareness. For the next two years, we will design campaigns to increase awareness about the disease.
B. Limited affordability of vaccine for patients
ARTEMIS’ POSITIVE ROLE: Artemis is committed to develop affordable vaccines and antibodies that will save thousands of lives.
C. High costs related to vaccine usage
D. Complex vaccination schedule
E. Lack of funding for rabies research
F. No demand for human rabies control. Priority is given to animal rabies control, because it is considered more effective
READ OUR
INTERVIEWS WITH RABIES EXPERTS
Our Head Research & Development, Dr. Byron Martina interviewed for this special occasion on “World Rabies Day”, 4 experts that have been working with rabies for more than a decade. In order to cover the different aspects and viewpoints in the problematics of the disease, we have selected experts with different backgrounds e.g veterinarian, infectious disease physician, consultant and research scientists.
Prof. dr. Noël Tordo
Directeur
Institut Pasteur de Guinée
Université Gamal Abdel Nasser – Conakry – Guinée
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WHO Collaborative Centre for Arboviruses and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers
OIE Reference Laboratory for RVFV and CCHFV
DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH A RABIES VICTIM?
The only direct personal experience I have with a rabies victim is with the young American Jeanna, who survived rabies upon heavy treatment in 2005. I was…
Prof. Anthony. R. Fooks
Prof. Anthony. R. FooksAnimal and Plant Health Agency (WHO Collaborating Centre for the Characterisation of Rabies and Rabies-Related Viruses, OIE Reference Laboratory for Rabies), New Haw, Addlestone, Surrey, KT15 3NB, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0) 208-415-2238. Email: Tony.Fooks@apha.gsi.gov.uk
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BURDEN: THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF RABIES IS ESTIMATED TO BE AROUND 60,000 DEATHS PER YEAR. DO YOU THINK THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF RABIES MIGHT BE HIGHER?
The number of 60,000 cases is an estimate only and it can only be supposed that the number is an underestimate. My own research in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Liverpool in the UK and Malawi, demonstrated that clinical rabies in humans is often misdiagnosed. Post-mortems are rarely undertaken…
Dr. Thomas Müller
Dr. Thomas Müller
Laborleiter
Institut für molekulare Virologie und Zellbiologie
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Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut
Bundesforschungsinstitut für Tiergesundheit
Federal Research Institute for Animal Health
DOGS ARE THE PROBLEM: SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT IF WE ELIMATE RABIES FROM STRAYDOGS, RABIES WILL NO LONGER BE A PROBLEM. DO YOU THINK TARGETING STRAY DOGS IS THE WAY TO GO?
No. There is no evidence that stray dogs alone are responsible for maintaining the disease and that by solely focusing on this subpopulation the problem will be solved. This would be the wrong message. In my opinion…
Pieter van Thiel, MD. PhD
Infectious disease physician
Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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AWARENESS: DO YOU THINK THERE IS A NEED TO INCREASE AWARENESS AMONG THE GENERAL POPULATION?
There is a great need to increase awareness under the population in the rural areas, e.g. posters in villages, messages via cell phones so that immediately after a likely rabies contact, a victim…
VISIT OUR DONATION AREA
→ SEND FREE ECARDS TO LOVED ONES ♥ right to their inbox
Send an Ecard
The best way to reduce unnecessary deaths is by increasing awareness. We have designed a collection of rabies awareness ecards. We encourage you to send our beautiful ecards to promote awareness among your family, friends, and colleagues.
HELP ARTEMIS FIGHT RABIES.
97,1% of your donation will go to our rabies charity projects fund, to support our research. 2,9% will cover credit card or transaction fees.
One can see it as a donation, but more likely you are making an investment to support research that is able to reduce unnecessary deaths.
SUPPORT US
Rabies treatment for ALL! “Imagine” a world RABIES FREE.
JOIN US in the fight against rabies!
HOW?
STEP 2: Participate by uniting with organizations or research institutions in the fight against rabies
CHARITY PROJECT ONE
Rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins "Affordable & Accessible" for the poor
Although rabies is 99.9% fatal, it is also 100% preventable if vaccines are used. In order to protect the population at risk from an agonizing death there is a need for safe, potent and affordable vaccines that can be widely available in these areas. Rabies kills more than 60,000 people each year, mainly children in the developing countries. Many of these infections could have been prevented or many infected individuals could have been helped if vaccine and immunoglobulin preparations were available at an affordable price. However, the current platforms for the production of these agents are complex and expensive.
CHARITY PROJECT TWO
Rabies treatment for ALL; "IMAGINE", a future where rabies is treatable.
Rabies is the deadliest virus known to mankind. Some of the clinical manifestations of rabies include fear of water (hydrophobia) and air (aerophobia). Once a patient develops clinical disease, he/she will certainly die as a result of the infection. To date, 99.9% of infected individuals die of infection and this cannot be prevented. It is extremely important to have medicines to treat un vaccinated individuals, which is not only important to the developing countries where rabies is a real problem, but also to the developed countries where imported cases have been reported. Artemis One Health has used state-of-the-art technology to decipher some of the pathways involved in the pathogenic process of fatal rabies encephalitis. Furthermore, Artemis has discovered a protein that can naturally target the viral RNA and inhibit virus replication. In this project, Artemis will build on preliminary data and focus on optimising the specificity of the anti-rabies protein to eventually develop a safe and effective anti-rabies treatment.
THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN US
WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS:
We thank Ab Osterhaus for narrating the story in our rabies film “Open Eyes”, Fungayi Mawire (mother role) and Sarah Jhingoerie (daughter role) for narrating a piece of the story in the rabies promotion film “Mother & Daughter”, and Wouter Mol for granting us permission to use part of his song track called Human in the rabies promotion film “Mother & Daughter”.
A very special thank you to our Head Research & Development, Dr. Byron Martina. This campaign would not have been possible without his advice and support.
Our Creative Team Collaborators
RABIES AWARENESS CAMPAIGN – 2017/2018
ARTEMIS ONE HEALTH RESEARCH FOUNDATION works with a group of Talented & Creative people, consisting of a webdesigner, a film producer, a photographer, a director, and a graphic designer. At Artemis we love creativity and innovation. We are always looking for new ideas and collaborators. Interested? Please feel free to contact Eurydice Martina, by email (e.martina@artemisonehealth.com) or phone (+31 306355444).
Claudia Bakker
Webdesigner & Founder of CBM webdesign
I have always had strong feelings about right and wrong. Especially if animals and innocent people (young children) are involved. We MUST put a stop on many diseases, just like Rabies. Working with Artemis gives me a chance to make a difference.
Eurydice Martina
Fundraising Officer at ARTEMIS & Founder of PROMAFUN Consultancy & Services
Every year, ~ 60,000 people die from rabies, a preventable disease. The majority of the victims are children in developing countries, who also had dreams.
As the director of this campaign, my focus was to deliver a strong message to the world, that every child is worth saving independent of where they live or their socio-economic status. No one in this world should die from a preventable disease!
Half of any battle is knowing when and how to fight. The best prevention of rabies is awareness of how to avoid danger and be prepared for when it hits.
Jasper Mol
Filmmaker & Founder Jasper Mol Productions
Young filmmaker and photographer from the Netherlands. Strives to touch and amaze.
Working with Artemis as a freelancer genuinely makes the best of two worlds. It’s an honor and a privilege to be part of the creative team that promotes rabies awareness during rabies world day.
Jeroen Roose
COO/ Head Technician at ARTEMIS
I am responsible for the functioning of the operational part of the research foundation. Furthermore, I focus on the technical aspect of the development of new technologies and provide the people in the lab with both scientific and technical support. Besides that, I think it is very important that vaccines against viruses such as rabies, should be available for everyone in the world and especially for children. Poverty may, in my opinion, never be the reason for not vaccinating children. It’s an honor and privilege to be also a part of the creative team, where I have the opportunity to design all the promotional material for all our campaigns.
Contact Us
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Molengraaffsingel 10
2629 JD Delft
E: info@artemisonehealth.com
P: +31 (0)30 635 5444
Partner with us:
Contact our principle investigator, Dr. Byron Martina
E: b.martina@artemisonehealth.com
Send Us a Message
Thanks for your interest in Artemis One Health Research Foundation. Please feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions for research, questions about our projects or simply if you would like our advice. We respect your privacy and All information received will always remain confidential. We will try to respond to you within 3-5 working days. For urgent enquiries please call: +31 (0)30 635 5444.