Table 1. Comparison of associated health parameters of two vector-borne diseases and human rabies transmitted by dogs ^a.

	Yellow fever	Japanese encephalitis	Rabies
Disease	Mild to acute viral hemorrhagic syndrome	Mild to severe viral encephalitis	Acute progressive viral encephalitis
Etiology	Flavivirus	Flavivirus	Lyssavirus
Distribution	Endemic in tropics of about 34 African and about 13 Latin American countries	Endemic in about 24 Southeast Asian and Western Pacific countries	Endemic within about 150 developing countries in the Americas, Africa, and Asia
Transmission	Mosquito	Mosquito	Dog bite
Case fatality	About 20–50% in severe cases	About 30%	>99.9%
Burden	About 84,000–170,000 severe cases	About 68,000 cases	>15 million exposures annually
Annual fatalities	About 29,000–60,000 estimated deaths in Africa alone	About 13,600–20,400 estimated deaths	About 25,000–159,000 estimated deaths
Epidemiological occurrence	Sylvatic cycle and urban outbreaks	Major outbreaks about 2–15 years, intensified during the rainy season	Primarily individual human cases in rural, underserved areas
Vaccination	One dose may be effective, with long-term to lifelong immunity in about 99% of people	Primary and booster doses for childhood Expanded Programme on Immunization incorporation	Currently, requires three or more doses in pre- or post-exposure vaccination
Treatment	Supportive care only	Supportive care only	No specific treatment, comfort care only before death
Prospect for elimination	Vaccination protects humans at risk, but Yellow fever cannot be eliminated in nature.	Vaccination protects humans at risk, but Japanese encephalitis is not a candidate for elimination.	Human rabies can be prevented by vaccination and canine rabies can be eliminated by mass dog vaccination.
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) support (by 2015)	>$264 million USD	About $105 million USD forecast for 2015–2020	$0

^aWorld Health Organization ( http://www.who.int/mediacentre/en/).