Rabies in the Streets

Found in two-thirds of the world, rabies is a devastating infectious disease with a 99.9 percent case-fatality rate and no cure once clinical signs appear. Rabies in the Streets tells the compelling story of the relationship between people, street animals, and rabies in India, where one-third of human rabies deaths occur. Deborah Nadal argues that only a One Health approach of “interspecies camaraderie” can save people and animals from the horrors of rabies and almost certain death.Grounded in multispecies ethnography, this book leads the reader through the streets and slums of Delhi and Jaipur, where people and animals, such as dogs, cows, and macaques, interact intimately and sometimes violently. Nadal explores the intricate web of factors that bring humans and animals into contact with one another within these urban spaces and create favorable pathways for the transmission of the rabies virus across species. This book shows how rabies is endemic in India for reasons that are as much social, cultural, and political as they are biological, ranging from inadequate sanitation to religious customs, from vaccine shortages to reliance on traditional medicine.The continuous emergence (and reemergence) of infectious diseases despite technical medical progress is a growing concern of our times and clearly questions the way we think of animal and environmental health. This original account of rabies challenges conventional approaches of separation and extermination, arguing instead that a One Health approach is our best chance at fostering mutual survival in a world increasingly overpopulated by humans, animals, and deadly pathogens.

“In this fascinating, accessible, and well-written text, Nadal considers various conceptualizations of rabies in India and the multidimensional challenges involved in controlling viral transmission within a One Health framework.”—D. A. Brass, Choice, “This is one of the best ethnographies on human-nonhuman relationships I have read.”—Sushrut Jadhav, founding editor of Anthropology & Medicine, “A truly original book and a fascinating read.”—Harlan Weaver, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

Deborah Nadal is a medical anthropologist specializing in South Asia. As a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, she is currently working at the University of Glasgow and at the Center for One Health Research at the University of Washington.