WSVRD-2024

Gowri is a veterinarian, holding a master’s in veterinary public health and a PhD focusing on Rabies Epidemiology, Diagnostics, and Immune Response. She has been deeply involved in rabies control and elimination efforts with Mission Rabies since 2016 and plays an advisory role towards international entities. She serves as an Advisory Member for The Regional Technical Advisory Group on Dog-Mediated Human Rabies with the World Health Organization, led the WHO Technical team for the National Strategic Plan for rabies elimination in Sri Lanka, and co-chaired the United Against Rabies Working Group. On a strategic front, Gowri has been instrumental in declaring "Rabies Controlled Areas," contributing to national and state action plans for rabies elimination in India. She also acted as a liaison between Mission Rabies and government departments, and advocated rabies prevention strategies to public bodies. Within Ceva, Gowri focuses on building and maintaining engagement with the global rabies community, particularly in field program implementation and management of Oral rabies vaccination of free roaming dogs with Rabitec-dog. Gowri supports Ceva's VPH activities in rabies control, emphasizing dog-mediated rabies including facilitating stakeholder engagement, advocating for Public Private Partnerships and One Health approaches, and driving targeted lobbying efforts for dog-mediated rabies projects.