My Year of Darwin 5/11/2014: The victory of a vaccine: rabies

"An order had recently been issued that all stray dogs should be killed, an we saw many lying dead on the road. A great number had lately gone mad, an sveral men had been bitten and had died in consequence. On several occasions hydrophobia has prevailed in this valley. It is remarkable thus to find so strange and dreadful a disease appearing time after time in the same isolated spot. It has been ramarked that certain villages in England are in like manner much more subject to this visitation than others... At Ica forty-two people thus miserably perished.!" Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle 

Hydrophobia is rabies and is caused by an infection of a virus that affects the nervous system. In many developed countries, death by rabies is rare and this is due to a rigorous vaccination program. 

However, in many countries death by rabies is more common and deaths still occur. An example is Afghanistan, where soldiers are warned to stay away from stray cats and dogs. 

Rabies vaccinations is remarkably effective in controlling rabies in domestic animals and the few cases of rabies that occur in humans typically comes from wild animals, such as bats, an otter, foxes, and a bobcat (these are cases in the US over the last couple of years).