Implementation of high coverage mass rabies vaccination in rural Uganda using predominantly static point methodology

Evans, Michael J.; Bailey, Jordana L. Burdon; Lohr, Frederic; Opira, W.; Migadde, M.; Gibson, Andrew D; Handel, Ian; Bronsvoort, Barend Mark de Clare; Mellanby, Richard J.; Gamble, Luke; Mazeri, Stella

doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2019.04.013

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Similar to other African countries, i.e. Uganda [16], Republic of South Africa [17], Tanzania [18], Malawi [19], and Kenya [20], the Namibian government launched a National Rabies Control Strategy in March 2015 [21]. The resulting dog rabies elimination programme targeting the eight regions of the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs, Oshana, Oshikoto, Omusati, Ohangwena, Kunene, Kavango West, Kavango East and Zambezi) (Fig 1A) has been cofinanced by the German government and receives technical support from the OIE and the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), Germany.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…As such, the devices could be used without interruption. However, it may pose a challenge if vaccinator efficiency is higher as was observed during the pilot phase of Namibia's vaccination campaign (580 dogs per day) [21] or in other countries including Uganda, Malawi and India where 596, 1760 and 4500 dogs were vaccinated per day respectively [16,31,33]. This only applies to one vaccinator or one team using a single GDL devicelarger numbers of daily vaccinations are typically the work of multiple teams, each of which can use one or more dedicated GDL's.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Application of the GARC Data Logger—a custom-developed data collection device—to capture and monitor mass dog vaccination campaigns in Namibia

Athingo¹,

Tenzin²,

Coetzer

et al. 2020

PLoS Negl Trop Dis

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Domestic dogs are responsible for 99% of all cases of human rabies and thus, mass dog vaccination has been demonstrated to be the most effective approach towards the elimination of dog-mediated human rabies. Namibia demonstrated the feasibility of this approach by applying government-led strategic rabies vaccination campaigns to reduce both human and dog rabies incidences in the Northern Communal Areas of Namibia since 2016. The lessons learnt using paper-based form for data capturing and management of mass dog vaccination campaign during the pilot and roll out phase of the project (2016–2018) led to the implementation of a simple and accurate data collection tool in the second phase (2019–2022) of the rabies elimination program. In this paper, we describe the implementation of such custom-developed vaccination tracking device, i.e. the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) Data Logger (GDL), and the integration of the collected data into a website-based rabies surveillance system (Rabies Epidemiological Bulletin—REB) during 2019 and 2020 campaigns. A total of 10,037 dogs and 520 cats were vaccinated during the 2019 campaign and 13,219 dogs and 1,044 cats during the 2020 campaign. The vaccination data were recorded with the GDL and visualized via REB. Subsequent GIS-analysis using gridded population data revealed a suboptimal vaccination coverage in the great majority of grid cells (82%) with a vaccination coverage below 50%. Spatial regression analysis identified the number of schools, estimated human density, and adult dog population were associated with the vaccination performance. However, there was an inverse correlation to human densities. Nonetheless, the use of the GDL improved data capturing and monitoring capacity of the campaign, enabling the Namibian government to improve strategies for the vaccination of at-risk areas towards achieving adequate vaccination coverage which would effectively break the transmission of rabies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of the GARC Data Logger—a custom-developed data collection device—to capture and monitor mass dog vaccination campaigns in Namibia

Athingo¹,

Tenzin²,

Coetzer

et al. 2020

PLoS Negl Trop Dis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A challenge to the elimination of rabies is the difficulty of developing and implementing vaccination programs that enable large numbers of dogs to be vaccinated within a short time period [11]. There are only a few countries in Southern Africa and Asia, where large numbers of dogs were vaccinated as part of governmentally supported dog rabies elimination programs [11,[26][27][28][29][30][31].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting Dog-Mediated Rabies in Namibia—Implementation of a Rabies Elimination Program in the Northern Communal Areas

Athingo¹,

Tenzin

Shilongo³

et al. 2020

TropicalMed

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The major part of the global burden of dog-mediated rabies falls on Africa and Asia, where still an estimated 60,000 people die of the disease annually. Like in many African countries, dog-mediated rabies is a major public health concern in Namibia, costing the country an estimated 242 human deaths during the past two decades, in particular in the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs). Consequently, under the “One Health” concept, the Namibian government adopted a National Rabies Control Strategy in 2015, which strives to contribute to the global goal of ending dog-mediated human rabies deaths by 2030. A key component of this strategy was the implementation a dog rabies elimination program in the NCAs in 2016, being designed as a stepwise regional rollout strategy by building on experience gained in a pilot project area. The area of implementation covers approximately 263,376 km2 and 64 constituencies, with around 1.2 million inhabitants and estimated 93,000 dogs.

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“…These challenges include financial constraints, lack of expertise in campaign design, erroneous exclusion of puppies, limited surveillance, and lack of cooperation between the veterinary and health sector (26). Improving the scalability of dog vaccination campaigns has been the focus of our group's activity over the past decade, and we have recently described high-number, highcoverage vaccination campaigns in numerous countries, including India, Uganda, Sri Lanka, and Malawi (14,(27)(28)(29).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using data-driven approaches to improve delivery of animal health care interventions for public health

Mazeri

Bailey²,

Mayer³

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Rabies kills ∼60,000 people per year. Annual vaccination of at least 70% of dogs has been shown to eliminate rabies in both human and canine populations. However, delivery of large-scale mass dog vaccination campaigns remains a challenge in many rabies-endemic countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the vast majority of dogs are owned, mass vaccination campaigns have typically depended on a combination of static point (SP) and door-to-door (D2D) approaches since SP-only campaigns often fail to achieve 70% vaccination coverage. However, D2D approaches are expensive, labor-intensive, and logistically challenging, raising the need to develop approaches that increase attendance at SPs. Here, we report a real-time, data-driven approach to improve efficiency of an urban dog vaccination campaign. Historically, we vaccinated ∼35,000 dogs in Blantyre city, Malawi, every year over a 20-d period each year using combined fixed SP (FSP) and D2D approaches. To enhance cost effectiveness, we used our historical vaccination dataset to define the barriers to FSP attendance. Guided by these insights, we redesigned our vaccination campaign by increasing the number of FSPs and eliminating the expensive and labor-intensive D2D component. Combined with roaming SPs, whose locations were defined through the real-time analysis of vaccination coverage data, this approach resulted in the vaccination of near-identical numbers of dogs in only 11 d. This approach has the potential to act as a template for successful and sustainable future urban SP-only dog vaccination campaigns.

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Implementation of high coverage mass rabies vaccination in rural Uganda using predominantly static point methodology

Cited by 11 publications

References 23 publications

Application of the GARC Data Logger—a custom-developed data collection device—to capture and monitor mass dog vaccination campaigns in Namibia

Application of the GARC Data Logger—a custom-developed data collection device—to capture and monitor mass dog vaccination campaigns in Namibia

Fighting Dog-Mediated Rabies in Namibia—Implementation of a Rabies Elimination Program in the Northern Communal Areas

Using data-driven approaches to improve delivery of animal health care interventions for public health

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