I have recently returned from a trip to South India where I was a volunteer in the Mission Rabies Campaign. Mission Rabies is a three-year campaign pioneered by WVS (World Veterinary Service) and Dogs Trust with the aim of vaccinating as many dogs as possible against the deadly rabies virus. Rabies is estimated to kill around 55000 people worldwide per year with around 25,000 of those being in India, and over half of which are children. It is transmitted mainly from an infected dog bite. 

The campaign began with a mass-vaccination drive in 12 cities in India with the target of vaccinating at least 50,000 dogs. The month-long drive began on 30 August and ended on 28 September to coincide with World Rabies Day. The first part of this campaign was a huge success as over 55,000 dogs were vaccinated. This will be repeated every year for the next three years. In the meantime, a custom-built Mission Rabies truck will be travelling around India holding courses for local vets in neutering techniques and effective population control techniques. 

I was based in Madurai, where our team vaccinated around 8,600 dogs in the space of 10 days. These were mostly stray dogs that were caught in nets by teams of experienced dog catchers. Once caught, the dogs were vaccinated and then marked with a non-toxic spray paint to ensure that they were not caught again for vaccination. The marking was also required in order to be able to run a post-vaccination survey to determine the percentage of vaccinated dogs, as opposed to non-vaccinated dogs. It was important that at least 70 per cent of the dogs were covered in each area, as this is the minimum coverage proved to be needed in order to stop the spread of the disease. All information was collected on a mobile app called Epicollect, which has provided us with all-important data that will come in handy for the next neutering campaign. 

Overall, it was a very rewarding experience, albeit very physically demanding. We got to see first-hand how much of a problem rabies is in India, and hopefully this campaign will help to reduce the spread of this devastating disease, which is always fatal for both animals and humans once symptoms develop. Apart from that, an education campaign will help to educate people about the need for urgent treatment after being bitten, and will also help to eliminate the needless persecution and culling of stray dogs fuelled by fear of this disease with emphasis on a sustainable and humane population control. 

For more information about the campaign please visit www.missionrabies.com. I am attaching a few photos of my experience, and you will also find quite a few on the website gallery. I would appreciate if you could run a story about this campaign as it is a very worthwhile cause.

Victoria Bondin

Small Animal Veterinary surgeon