Rabies in the Streets: Interspecies Camaraderie in Urban India

Found in two thirds of the world, rabies is a devastating infectious disease with no effective cure once symptoms appear and a 99.9 percent case-fatality rate. Rabies in the Streets tells the compelling story of the relationship between people, street animals, and rabies in urban India, where one third of human rabies deaths occur. In this book, Deborah Nadal makes the case that only a One Health approach of “interspecies camaraderie” can save people and animals from the horrors of rabies and almost certain death.

Using the methods of multispecies ethnography, this book leads the reader through the streets and slums of Delhi and Jaipur, where people and animals, such a dogs, cats, and macaques, interact intimately and sometimes violently. Nadal explores the intricate web of factors that brings people into contact with animals in these spaces, creating favorable conditions for the rabies virus to infect across species. She shows how and why the sociocultural conditions that contribute to the spread of rabies—including poverty, a limited awareness of rabies and bite treatment, trust in traditional medicines, inadequate health and sanitation facilities, political ambivalence, and religious customs—are so numerous that they overwhelm the biological factors.

Despite technical medical progress, infectious diseases are now emerging and reemerging in ways we did not expect. This original story of rabies challenges conventional approaches of separation and extermination, proving that a One Health approach is our best chance at fostering mutual survival in a world increasingly overpopulated by humans, animals, and deadly pathogens.