Effectiveness of the house-to-house rabies vaccination programme : a case study of Magabheni Township.

Abstract

Rabies is a zoonotic disease that is caused by a virus. Rabies infects domestic and wild animals, and is spread to people through close contact with infected saliva trough bites or scratches. The disease is present on nearly every continent of the world but most human deaths occur in Asia and Africa. Dogs continue to be the main carrier of rabies in Africa and Asia and are responsible for the human rabies deaths worldwide.People most at risk of rabies live in rural areas. The economic burden of rabies in the developing world takes large toll by means pre and post exposure prophylaxis treatments, cost of vaccine and other hidden costs. The study is set out to investigate the effectiveness of house-to-house rabies vaccination in Magabheni Township in KwaZulu-Natal province, a region that has experienced rabies outbreaks since 1976s. It is well-known that control of rabies at the animal source is a key to control of the disease in humans. However the main problem faced in the control of this zoonotic disease is that vaccination of dogs is not sustained, as a large percentage of dogs are not accessible. Due to some hiccups in existing strategies, there is always a significant percentage of the dog population that is not accessible. The strategy proposed and investigated is indeed labour intensive but result is a much higher percentage of dogs being accessed. In brief the observation and questionnaires as tools to generate data. The data obtained will be useful and can be considered as a strategy for rabies control in the country and probably the region