External Authors: Elly Hiby, Maganga Sambo

Mass dog vaccination is a proven, cost-effective way to save human lives by stopping the transmission of rabies at its source. However, certain barriers to the implementation of dog vaccination campaigns must first be overcome to reach and sustain herd immunity at a sufficient scale.

To support stakeholders in implementing and scaling up dog vaccination campaigns, the United Against Rabies Forum has released a guidance document. This outlines helpful tools and resources that can form solutions to the priority barriers, revealed by an extensive literature review and global online survey.

This document was further complemented by the United Against Rabies webinar ‘Eliminating dog-mediated rabies: addressing barriers to scaling up dog vaccination campaigns’  (December 2023). The webinar featured experts who offered valuable insights into the critical roles of dog population estimation, community engagement, community animal health workers, and electronic data capture methods to ensure vaccination campaigns are effective and sustainable.

The ‘Dog vaccination – barriers and solutions’ document will be updated regularly by members of the United Against Rabies Forum. Users of this document are encouraged to provide feedback on any additional resources to be included, or to send in additional evidence to support the use of the listed tools and resources.

The United Against Rabies Forum is a community of rabies experts that are available to provide technical assistance should there be questions regarding the implementation or scaling up of dog vaccination campaigns.

For more information, please contact globalrabiescoordinator@woah.org.