Control and Prevention of Rabies through Dog Vaccination Campaigns, Public Awareness Creation and Dog Population Control

Rabies virus claims an estimated 55,000 lives each year, with the majority of fatalities in Asia and Africa. One person dies every ten minutes worldwide due to rabies, even though it is 100% preventable. In Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia, 4729 human rabies cases and 44 deaths were reported from 2009 – 2012. Therefore, the objectives of the current intervention were to initiate vaccination campaigns against Rabies and create awareness to the community. Mekelle University College of Veterinary Medicine have started organizing events during the celebration of the World Rabies Day to create awareness to the community particularly to school children, organize panel discussion forums with concerned stakeholders and conduct vaccination campaigns. In addition, dog population control was conducted in Mekelle city in partnership with various stakeholders.  From 2010 to 2013, an awareness creation was conducted to 7050 school children from five schools. A total of 4734 dogs were vaccinated, 3550 ownerless dogs depopulated, and 388 dogs neutered. Four panel discussion forums were conducted at regional level with concerned stakeholders to initiate a collaborative and integrated control measures against the disease. The awareness creation is still continuing using regular airtime with local media namely FM Mekelle (104.4), Fana Broadcasting Mekelle (94.8) and DWT FM (102.2) radios that reached to the larger community. After the college started the awareness creation programs, the awareness of the community changed significantly. Therefore, intensifying the awareness creation programs and vaccination campaigns, and dissemination of best practices are believed to be alternative areas of  intervention for rabies control.