Rabies Mass Vaccination - ALL CREATURES

Mass Rabies Vaccination

Rabies is among the worst zoonotic diseases in the world and responsible for an astronomical 70,000 deaths annually. The lack of control of this viral disease continues to pose global public health challenges in the developing world.

WHO has confirmed that over 90% of conﬁrmed and reported cases of human exposure to rabies are from domestic dogs in sub saharan Africa. ALL CREATURES is committed to providing safe, relatively cheap, and effective vaccination for dogs towards eradication of rabies in our target communities in Africa.

In Malawi, the districts of Mzimba, Chitipa, and Karonga through field reports, seem to be registering the highest number of rabies cases in the country. ALL CREATURES has partnered with the Community Veterinary Clinic in Florida and Humane Society International to carry out mass vaccination of dogs in Embangweni and Mzuzu City Council respectively.

Through the elimination of inappropriate strategies (e.g. dog culling) and developing cost effective strategies, we target to eliminate rabies from the district of Mzimba within the next three years. The City council has embarked on the process of reaching a council resolution to abolish dog culling as dog population management strategy to control rabies. In the same spirit ALL CREATURES is going to support the city council with stray animal management through establishing the first spay and neuter programme in the region. All our efforts target to fine tune our vaccination delivery strategy which needs to be effective in both coverage and cost to ensure maximum impact.

With support from Humane Society International, the Mzuzu mass vaccination drive shall involve coordination of foot vaccinators, rabies education teachers, publicity teams, and vaccination surveillance team. The ultimate goal shall be the vaccination of at least 70% of the dog population in Mzuzu (both owned and roaming) as recommended by the World Animal Health Organisation. All our teams shall be trained and equipped with sophisticated technologies to establish the level of dog population accessibility, numbers vaccinated and data on animal welfare states of the animals in order to collect the all-important baseline information for further interventions with the city and the rural peri-urban communities.