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Guide for Organizing Large-Scale Dog Rabies Vaccination Days

Full Text
(in Spanish, PDF, 48 pp, 1.8 Mb; chapter titles translated below for user orientation)
1. Introduction
2. Purpose
3. Preliminary Definitions
4. Scheduling
4.1 Budget
4.2 Recruiting & Training
4.3 Promotion & Spreading the News
4.3.1 To the Actors
4.3.2 To the Population
5. Organization & Functions
5.1 Organization
5.2 Functions
6. Supplies & Logistics
7. Execution
8. Information System
9. Supervision & Evaluation

PAHO Rabies Page

WHO Rabies Page

Purpose of the Guide: Construct an instrument that permits:

• Staff members from Public Health Services to obtain systematized information to guide them on how to organize, carry out, and evaluate vaccination campaign activities.
• Explicitly indicate the role of the various institutional and social actors—be they public or private, or from the national, intermediate, municipal, or local level—in the different phases or stages of this type of vaccination campaigns.

Purpose of the Vaccination Days: Definitively interrupt the circulation of the rabies virus in the canine population.

Introduction: Human rabies transmitted by dogs is can be easily transmitted through pets and owners living together, the canine species continuing to be in many parts of the world one of the most important reservoirs of this disease.

During such events, we recommended that there be no charge for the owners of the dogs being vaccinated against rabies.

In each country or region, the best and most appropriate time of year to carry out these events is a month before the time when historically the great number of cases of canine rabies have occurred (i.e. the 'rabies season' showing the greatest incidence).

The desired level of vaccination coverage should amount to the entire canine population existing at that time in the place where the strategy is being applied (country, region, state, province, department, municipality, or another territorial division).

During rabies vaccination campaigns for dogs, it may be of interest for some of the inhabitants to also have their cats vaccinated, such that it is a good idea for serve this need if possible. These animals, although they are not a reservoir for the rabies virus, can accidentally transmit any variant of the virus to humans, including those that circulate in canine populations and bats populating urban areas.

Large-scale canine rabies vaccination carried out over short periods of time has been the main strategy for interrupting the circulation of the virus in canine and feline populations—and thus, its transmission to humans.