Prof Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon and professor of comparative epidemiology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She has a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, focusing on research in rabies and canine distemper in Tanzania.
Prof Cleaveland said rabies did not exist in New Zealand, and was much less well known in developed countries than Ebola.
Ebola had killed an estimated 12,000 people in its peak year, last year, but rabies killed about 60,000 people each year.
Rabies remained one of the "invisible diseases" that afflicted the poor in developing countries, but it was morally unacceptable to allow the deaths to continue when they could be prevented, with more effort and co-ordination.
Prof Cleaveland is visiting the University of Otago, and on Thursday night gave the latest annual McKinlay Oration, titled "Towards the global elimination of rabies: evidence, interventions, and impact".
Prof Cleaveland was encouraged by the strong stance taken by the World Health Organisation and some other key international health bodies, which had late last year pledged to end rabies deaths among humans by 2030.
"It just requires there to be some interest and concern," she said.
She believed that was a demanding but achievable goal, and the key was in vaccinating dogs.
She also supports the "One Health" approach, in which work is undertaken to protect from disease both farm animals and the people who live closely with them in developing countries. If 70% of dogs were vaccinated, humans would be much better protected.
This week, Prof Cleaveland has also been attending the Otago Global Health Institute’s 9th annual conference, and the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases New Zealand Annual Scientific Meeting, the latter ending today.
