Priorities in applied research to ensure programmatic success in the global elimination of canine rabies

Rupprecht, Charles E.; Kuzmin, Ivan V.; Yale, Gowri; Nagarajan, Thirumeni; Meslin, F. X.

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.01.015

Cited by 20 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Both CVR and OBH methods present potential risks due to the fact that dogs are often roaming freely in public areas and can behave unpredictably, however this must be weighed against the suffering that would be prevented for future generations through rabies virus elimination. The selection of an ORV that is safe in both target and non-target species, including humans, is essential [56]. More than 270 million doses of recombinant, modified-live and attenuated-live oral rabies vaccines have been used in wildlife in Europe and North America with minimal adverse events in target and non-target species [23], [24], [57], [58], and the handout distribution method reduces the chances of human exposure to vaccine by removing a large proportion of the unconsumed bait and capsule material from the environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oral bait handout as a method to access roaming dogs for rabies vaccination in Goa, India: A proof of principle study

Gibson

Yale²,

Vos

et al. 2019

Vaccine: X

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Rabies has profound public health, social and economic impacts on developing countries, with an estimated 59,000 annual human rabies deaths globally. Mass dog vaccination is effective at eliminating the disease but remains challenging to achieve in India due to the high proportion of roaming dogs that cannot be readily handled for parenteral vaccination. Two methods for the vaccination of dogs that could not be handled for injection were compared in Goa, India; the oral bait handout (OBH) method, where teams of two travelled by scooter offering dogs an empty oral bait construct, and the catch-vaccinate-release (CVR) method, where teams of seven travel by supply vehicle and use nets to catch dogs for parenteral vaccination. Both groups parenterally vaccinated any dogs that could be held for vaccination. The OBH method was more efficient on human resources, accessing 35 dogs per person per day, compared to 9 dogs per person per day through CVR. OBH accessed 80% of sighted dogs, compared to 63% by CVR teams, with OBH accessing a significantly higher proportion of inaccessible dogs in all land types. All staff reported that they believed OBH would be more successful in accessing dogs for vaccination. Fixed operational team cost of CVR was four times higher than OBH, at 127 USD per day, compared to 34 USD per day. Mean per dog vaccination cost of CVR was 2.53 USD, whilst OBH was 2.29 USD. Extrapolation to a two week India national campaign estimated that 1.1 million staff would be required using CVR, but 293,000 staff would be needed for OBH. OBH was operationally feasible, economical and effective at accessing the free roaming dog population. This study provides evidence for the continued expansion of research into the use of OBH as a supplementary activity to parenteral mass dog vaccination activities in India.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oral bait handout as a method to access roaming dogs for rabies vaccination in Goa, India: A proof of principle study

Gibson

Yale²,

Vos

et al. 2019

Vaccine: X

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“…Additionally, the role of wildlife and other host species remains unclear [ 91 ]. Even though the circulation of dog rabies seems predominant in dog populations, there are too few studies addressing the dynamics of RABV in wildlife and dogs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other data types such as social sciences data could help identify knowledge gaps and refine control measures to be tested further using mathematical models. For example, there is little quantitative evidence of the impact of community response on the efficacy of control measures [ 91 ], although it is key to human rabies prevention [ 97 , 98 ] and it is expected to change over rabies outbreaks and affect rabies dynamics. By bridging the two disciplines, alternative control strategies that are both effective and adapted to community preferences could be designed [ 99 ] ( Fig 4 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical modelling and phylodynamics for the study of dog rabies dynamics and control: A scoping review

et al. 2021

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Background Rabies is a fatal yet vaccine-preventable disease. In the last two decades, domestic dog populations have been shown to constitute the predominant reservoir of rabies in developing countries, causing 99% of human rabies cases. Despite substantial control efforts, dog rabies is still widely endemic and is spreading across previously rabies-free areas. Developing a detailed understanding of dog rabies dynamics and the impact of vaccination is essential to optimize existing control strategies and developing new ones. In this scoping review, we aimed at disentangling the respective contributions of mathematical models and phylodynamic approaches to advancing the understanding of rabies dynamics and control in domestic dog populations. We also addressed the methodological limitations of both approaches and the remaining issues related to studying rabies spread and how this could be applied to rabies control. Methodology/principal findings We reviewed how mathematical modelling of disease dynamics and phylodynamics have been developed and used to characterize dog rabies dynamics and control. Through a detailed search of the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases, we identified a total of n = 59 relevant studies using mathematical models (n = 30), phylodynamic inference (n = 22) and interdisciplinary approaches (n = 7). We found that despite often relying on scarce rabies epidemiological data, mathematical models investigated multiple aspects of rabies dynamics and control. These models confirmed the overwhelming efficacy of massive dog vaccination campaigns in all settings and unraveled the role of dog population structure and frequent introductions in dog rabies maintenance. Phylodynamic approaches successfully disentangled the evolutionary and environmental determinants of rabies dispersal and consistently reported support for the role of reintroduction events and human-mediated transportation over long distances in the maintenance of rabies in endemic areas. Potential biases in data collection still need to be properly accounted for in most of these analyses. Finally, interdisciplinary studies were determined to provide the most comprehensive assessments through hypothesis generation and testing. They also represent new avenues, especially concerning the reconstruction of local transmission chains or clusters through data integration. Conclusions/significance Despite advances in rabies knowledge, substantial uncertainty remains regarding the mechanisms of local spread, the role of wildlife in dog rabies maintenance, and the impact of community behavior on the efficacy of control strategies including vaccination of dogs. Future integrative approaches that use phylodynamic analyses and mechanistic models within a single framework could take full advantage of not only viral sequences but also additional epidemiological information as well as dog ecology data to refine our understanding of rabies spread and control. This would represent a significant improvement on past studies and a promising opportunity for canine rabies research in the frame of the One Health concept that aims to achieve better public health outcomes through cross-sector collaboration.

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“…One of the reasons why rabies remains a major cause of mortality, despite having all the tools available to eliminate it, is because of the challenges of vaccinating dogs at high coverages at a national scale (25). 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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Priorities in applied research to ensure programmatic success in the global elimination of canine rabies

Cited by 20 publications

References 45 publications

Oral bait handout as a method to access roaming dogs for rabies vaccination in Goa, India: A proof of principle study

Oral bait handout as a method to access roaming dogs for rabies vaccination in Goa, India: A proof of principle study

Mathematical modelling and phylodynamics for the study of dog rabies dynamics and control: A scoping review

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

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