Ukraine combats a new deadly threat: rabies

The battle-field that is Ukraine, where up to 1,40,000 troops and thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia began its attack in February 2022, has a new threat: rabies.

As the conflict batters the country, wild animals – foxes, wolves, and raccoons – are moving into human habitations, passing on the zoonotic disease to pets abandoned by people who had to evacuate, says a new report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 

The constant conflict in the country is “disrupting prevention efforts” such as immunising wild and stray animals, says the report, adding that doctors and healthcare authorities have sounded a bell of caution.

‘Huge number of strays’

The war has led “to a huge rise in the number of stray animals,” says the Lancet report, by Ed Holt, which quotes a World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Ukraine, Jarno Habicht: “Russia’s full-scale invasion significantly worsened the situation with rabies throughout Ukraine. Veterinary services report an increasing number of animal rabies cases, while public health authorities are alarmed by a heightened number of people seeking medical assistance after being bitten by an animal.”

Ukraine has never been rabies-free, the report points out. In fact in 2021, there were hundreds of rabies cases among animals. As for human deaths from rabies, they have been recorded for 25 years before the war too. But there “has been a significant rise in cases” with the start of the war, when both rabies cases in animals and humans being bitten by rabid animals has been reported.

From 780 in 2021, the number of people bitten by animals with rabies increased to 2,507 in 2024, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. Data from national veterinary authorities meanwhile shows that animal rabies cases rose from 848 in 2021 to 1,718 in 2024. The most recent case was that of a 51-year-old woman who was bitten by a stray dog last month in her house yard in the Kharkiv region.

India would relate: we represent a third, around 20,000, of rabies-mediated human deaths every year, more than any other country, according to a paper published in One Health in December 2024. Rabies is endemic to India and the victims are the poorest: those who live in villages, daily wage workers, people below the poverty line, the homeless.

Combat disrupting habitats

In Ukraine, wild animals that can carry the virus, have “migrated from combat zones to safer places,” often to populous ones where they come into contact with stray animals and human residents. Combating this disease is not easy during war, especially “near the frontlines, where preventive measures… are limited,” and “aerial distribution of vaccines is not possible” as the use of non-military aircraft is prohibited, says the report.

Martial law in Ukraine restricts animal culling “to avoid gunshots being misinterpreted,” explained the Lancet report. While the main vector of interspecies transmission in Ukraine remains the red fox, “cats and dogs were now playing a considerable role in its spread”, especially animals abandoned in areas of active warfare, Pavlo Nartov, Medical Director, Kharkiv Regional Children’s Infectious Clinical Hospital, said.

Gaps in coverage

Authorities in the country are trying to stop the disease spread by vaccinating wild animals, and running public awareness campaigns; there are resources for diagnosis, PEP (postexposure prophylaxis), and vaccination of animals. But gaps remain in coverage and timely access, “particularly near frontline regions” said Prof. Habicht.

Wars have forever been associated with disease, not just bullet wounds and bombs. Today, drug-resistant bacteria proliferate in battered Gaza. Some 2,00,000 died from infectious diseases such as the flu pandemic during WWI. The 2003 invasion of Iraq war saw a rise in cases of hepatitis A. And the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been associated with the civil war. 

Published – February 11, 2026 10:29 am IST