Rabies response, One Health and more-than-human considerations in Indigenous communities in northern Australia

Abstract

Australia is currently canine rabies free; however, the spread of rabies in eastern Indonesia poses an increasing risk to northern Australia. Domestic dogs are numerous in East Arnhem Land (EAL) and the Northern Peninsular Area (NPA), usually unrestrained and living in close relationships with humans. The response to any rabies outbreak on Australian territory will focus on dog vaccination, controlling dog movements and depopulation. A One Health approach to zoonotic disease control should seek to co-promote human and animal health, whilst also seeking to accommodate the preferences of affected communities. We report on 5 collaborative workshops and 28 semi-structured interviews conducted between January 2017 and June 2018 with: (i) EAL and NPA community members; (ii) Indigenous Rangers in EAL and NPA; and (iii) residents of Cairns, the local regional centre. Storyboard methodologies were used to work with participants and explore what rabies response measures they thought were justified or unacceptable, why they held these views, and what other steps they believed needed to be taken. Key findings include that the capacity of the NPA and EAL communities to contribute/adapt to a biosecurity response is limited by structural disadvantage including poor infrastructure (such as lockable premises and intact fences) and appropriate information, dominant cultural norms and food security concerns. Dogs and dingoes can have great cultural and social importance; key interventions might be accommodated within cultural beliefs and long-standing norms of dog management if sufficient effort is made to adapt interventions to local contexts and community preferences. Adopting such a 'strengths-based' approach mandates that the communities at greatest risk need help to prepare for and develop strategies to manage a biosecurity response to a rabies incursion. This would include listening to individual and community concerns and attending to the educational and infrastructural needs for supporting different groups to respond appropriately.

Reorienting rabies research and practice: Lessons from India

“…To our knowledge, this is the first sustained and in-depth empirical study of society-street dog relationships in India that examines social, multispecies, institutional, and public health dimensions simultaneously and in an open-ended manner that reaches beyond a singular focus on rabies and/or dog bites. Through analyses of these datasets, and in conversation with recent scholarship on healthy publics (Hinchliffe et al, 2018) and more-than-human geographies (Blue, 2015;Degeling et al, 2018), we develop a grounded understanding of the wider context within which rabies emerges and is addressed. Our aim is to generate new insights on the persistence of rabies as a major public health concern despite current scientific consensus on how it can be eradicated, and more than a century of state-led dog control in India.…”

“…Over the years, epidemiological, biomedical, veterinary, and more recently social science, research has led to substantial advances in knowledge on rabies prevention (Lembo et al, 2010;Davlin and Vonville, 2012;Sambo et al, 2014;Hampson et al, 2015;Widyastuti et al, 2015;Wallace et al, 2017;Castillo-Neyra et al, 2017;Taylor et al, 2017b;Cleaveland and Hampson, 2017;Elser et al, 2018;Degeling et al, 2018). Given the centrality of dogs to the spread of human rabies, the World Health Organization (WHO) (2019) recommends a three-pronged approach: (a) elimination of canine rabies through vaccination; (b) rabies awareness, dog bite prevention, and responsible dog ownership programmes; and (c) immunisation of people.…”

Qualitative Research for One Health: From Methodological Principles to Impactful Applications

“…Storyboard methods are particularly effective in bringing a focus on the social, temporal and spatial aspects of events or phenomena of interest-for example, the point of entry and likely transmission pathway of infectious disease outbreak in a remote or rural setting. By way of illustration, drawing on previous dog population surveys, preliminary qualitative interviews and a disease model (67,87), storyboarding with communities in northern Australia allowed for the co-creation of knowledge about the potential impacts of a rabies outbreak, and to explore the feasibility and acceptability of different prevention and control strategies (88).…”

Response to Wolf et al.: Furthering Debate over the Suitability of Trap-Neuter-Return for Stray Cat Management

“…Thus, although rabies is not present in Australia, its spread in eastern Indonesia increases the risk of entry to northern Australia [60] and has prompted calls for rabies vaccination of Queensland veterinary clinical staff and students [61]. Responses would involve management of a range of susceptible domestic animals, including cats [62]. We therefore argue that control of stray cat populations is required for management of those diseases already present in Australia and to reduce potential reservoirs of hosts for introduced diseases.…”