People and animals
Saving dogs, saving people
In 95% of cases, people have been infected with rabies by a domestic dog. Vaccinating dogs against rabies is the key to stopping this terrifying disease. It protects the dogs from rabies and creates a barrier between the disease and people.
Vaccinating dogs
Part of our work is to:
- carry
out mass vaccination programs of domestic dogs
- encourage
humane dog population controls
- help
people understand the benefits of responsible pet ownership
All of the above improve community attitudes towards dogs, improve animal welfare, and reduce the practice of ‘dog culling’ (mass, indiscriminate slaughter to reduce dog population).
Reducing the incidence of rabies in dogs also protects livestock, animals that families rely on for food and/or income.
Vaccinating people
As a part of some projects, we
- deliver
pre-exposure vaccines to people who are at a high risk of infection
- administer
prompt and appropriate post-exposure treatment to others who have been exposed
to rabies.
Saving Raju
A story from our Adopt a Village Project, India
"During my interaction with villagers and from baseline survey, I was surprised to know that very few people were aware of the fatal nature of the disease and majority of them thought that rabies can be cured.
I encountered a boy named Raju, 12 years old child from Kumbalgodu which is one of our project villages. He was the only son to his parents who were laborers belonging to lower socioeconomic status.
Raju was bitten by a dog over face, neck and left leg while he was coming home from school. As both his parents went for the work no one was there to take care of him.
Neighbors applied jackfruit gum, turmeric powder and cloth bandage to the wound. He was not taken to the hospital as his parents could not afford rabies immunoglobulin and vaccines.
One of our village level health workers (rabies volunteers) came to know about the incident and rushed to the place. She removed the bandage, washed the wound with soap and water and informed me regarding the incident.
I advised her to bring the child to our health centre immediately and provided modern post exposure prophylaxis (rabies Immunoglobulin and anti-rabies vaccine) free of cost.
Raju received complete course of anti-rabies vaccination as per schedule and now is fit and healthy.
Due to the continuous efforts by the project team towards creating awareness among villagers regarding rabies and its prevention through various methods like showing public video film on rabies on weekdays, wall paintings and posters on rabies prevention, involvement of traditional folk media, community mobilization, creating a separate cadre of village level workers (rabies volunteers) resulted in more and more animal bite victims seeking post exposure prophylaxis."
By Dr. Praveeen Kulkarni, Medical Officer
Unexpected benefits
The destruction caused by rabies is far reaching, and there are often unexpected benefits to controlling it. Following our project in Bohol, we found that
- educating
children about the risks of rabies reduced dog bites by 50%
- introducing
dog registration and population controls reduced the number of traffic
accidents involving stray dogs
These are tangible cost savings for the primary healthcare service.
How are we doing?
Bohol has had only one person die of rabies since October 2008.
In Tanzania, our project covers 25,000 km², an area larger than New Jersey (USA) or Wales (GB). Here, 35,000-50,000 dog vaccinations are administered every year, protecting dogs and people from rabies. Over 650,000 people no longer live with the threat of rabies because of the Serengeti vaccination project.
