The "Case Control Study on the Social and Epidemiological Impacts of Long-Lasting Collars in Dog Vaccination Campaigns in Bangladesh" was conducted in Savar and Narsingdi municipalities from September 8-16, 2023.
The study aimed to assess the epidemiological and social effects of utilizing long-lasting collars in large-scale dog vaccination campaigns, says a press release issued on Sunday.
The research was carried out in partnership with FAO Bangladesh and the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) and the Communicable Disease Control (CDC) of DGHS.
Over the course of eight days, 2,153 dogs have been vaccinated, microchipped, and marked by either collaring 1,146 dogs at Savar or colouring 1,007 dogs at Narsingdi municipalities.
Rabies kills approximately 59,000 people globally every year and the overwhelming majority of these deaths are caused by the bites of rabid domestic dogs.
Rabies is entirely preventable, and safe and effective vaccines exist for both humans and animals.
Most rabies deaths occur in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) with the resulting burden exceeding $8 billion annually so it is costly both in the devastating loss of human life but also has economic ramifications.
To break the cycle of transmission, dog vaccination campaigns should strive for 70% vaccination coverage.
The evaluation of dog vaccination campaigns, specifically vaccination coverage, remains challenging, particularly in LMICs where most of the dog population is free-roaming and not restrained.
Through a regional FAO TCP project, FAO Bangladesh established Rabies Action Centre of Excellence (Race) and conducted a national try-out; an Olympiad like competitions and got best five teams amongst 42 teams.
They got an introductory training on dog catching and vaccination in 2021.
With that knowledge and skills teams contributed a lot to the national MDV campaigns.
After that an advanced training was also provided to national teams facilitated by a pool of experts from Indonesia including the Bali A team to achieve the next level of expertise to increase more vaccination coverage.
Under OH collaborative approach FAO, University of Glasgow, Boehringer Ingelheim, DLS, CDC DGHS and local government are supporting the program.
Four national teams are performing dog catching, vaccinating, microchipping and finally marking by collar or paint. International standard vaccines and dog collars from France are used in the study.
There is no difference of intervention between two locations except marking: in Savar teams doing by collaring and in Narshingdi by livestock painting. Teams are capturing data using kobo toolkits and Talea app.
National teams will visit periodically in two locations and capture data on longevity of marking for another 11 months.
To understand the perception of community sensitization on vaccinated dogs with collars, some students from universities with sociology back grounds will be deployed to collect data on the people’s perception.
All the data will be analyzed, and results will be shared to motivate policy decisions towards achieving the target of canine rabies elimination by 2030.