Dataset Information

Evaluation of Community-Based Dog Welfare and Rabies Project in Sanur, a Sub-district of the Indonesian Island Province of Bali.

ABSTRACT: The Indonesian island province of Bali experienced its first rabies incursion in 2008. Mass vaccination of the dog population has proven effective and rabies cases in dogs and people have decreased, however the virus is still circulating among the dog population. Vaccination coverage must be maintained until rabies elimination. Increasing efficiency and effectiveness of vaccination campaigns is therefore desired. Community engagement leading to preventative health actions by community members can reduce disease incidence and costs of control. Here we evaluate 2 years of a novel community-based dog welfare and rabies control project (Program Dharma) in the Sanur sub-district. The project engaged the services of people living in the project area with an interest or experience in dogs or community health services. These people spoke with owners within their own community about dog welfare and health, monitored owned and unowned dogs and increased owner and carer efforts to access vaccination and further veterinary services. The evaluation focused on a sample of dogs whose owners had been regularly engaged with project. Vaccination coverage was increased and there were no dog or human rabies cases reported in the project area; the percentage of the dogs that had never been vaccinated was reduced by an average 28.3% (baseline unvaccinated 41-49%, post-project unvaccinated 11-19%). The welfare of dogs improved from an average of 20.7% of dogs with visible welfare problems at baseline to 2.7% after project implementation. Roaming dog density observed on street surveys also decreased in all project areas (24-47% reduction dependent on desa). A participatory evaluation event with a sample of Program Dharma community-based agents highlighted several additional successes, including that the community appeared to welcome and value their services and were beginning to support the cost of project activities. Conversely, challenges included identifying dogs in the database during revisits, sustaining the costs of community member time spent working on Program Dharma activities and the costs of veterinary care, whilst avoiding dependency of owners on free veterinary services. The benefits revealed by the evaluation were judged to be sufficient to extend Program Dharma to new areas, whilst evolving activities to resolve challenges.

SUBMITTER: Utami NWA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6629783 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundZoonoses are a major threat to human health. Worldwide, rabies is responsible for approximately 59 000 deaths annually. In Zimbabwe, rabies is one of the top 5 priority diseases and it is notifiable. It is estimated that rabies causes 410 human deaths per year in the country. Murewa district recorded 938 dog bite cases and 4suspected rabies deaths between January 2017 and July 2018, overshooting the threshold of zero rabies cases. Of the 938dog bite cases reported in the district, 263 were reported in Ward 30 and these included all the 4suspected rabies deaths reported in the district. This necessitated a study to assess risk factors for contracting rabies in Ward 30, Murewa.Methodology/ principal findingsA descriptive cross sectional survey was used for a retrospective analysis of a group of dog bite cases reported at Murewa Hospital, in Ward 30. Purposive sampling was used to select dog bite cases and snowball sampling was used to locate unvaccinated dogs and areas with jackal presence. The dog bite cases and relatives of rabies cases were interviewed using a piloted interviewer-administered questionnaire. Geographical Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of dog bite cases, vaccinated and unvaccinated dogs and jackal presence were collected using handheld GPS device. QGIS software was used to spatially analyse and map them. Dog owners were 10 times more likely to contract rabies compared to non-dog owners (RR = 10, 95% CI 1.06-93.7). Owners of unvaccinated dogs were 5 times more likely to contract rabies compared to owners of vaccinated dogs (RR = 5.01, 95% CI 0.53-47.31). Residents of the high density cluster (area with low cost houses and stand size of 300 square meters and below) were 64 times more likely to contract rabies compared to non-high density cluster residents (RR = 64.87, 95% CI 3.6039-1167.82). Participants who were not knowledgeable were 0.07 times more likely to contract rabies, compared to those who had knowledge about rabies. (RR = 0.07, 95% CI 0.004-1.25). Our study shows that the risk factors for contacting rabies included; low knowledge levels regarding rabies, dog ownership residing in the high density cluster, owning unvaccinated dogs and spatial overlap of jackal presence with unvaccinated dogs.

Project description:BackgroundPreviously thought to be rabies free, Bali experienced an outbreak of animal and human rabies cases in November 2008. We describe the epidemiological and clinical data of human rabies cases occurring in the first two years of the outbreak.MethodsWe analysed the patient records of all rabies cases from the Sanglah General Hospital in Denpasar, and district hospitals in Buleleng and Tabanan. A conventional reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was developed to detect the rabies virus genome in saliva, corneal swabs, and ante- and post-mortem cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).ResultsThere were 104 human rabies cases in Bali during November 2008-November 2010. Patients' mean age was 36.6 years (range 3-84 years; SD 20.7), most were male (56.7%), and originated from rural districts. Almost all (92%) cases had a history of dog bite. Only 5.8% had their wounds treated and received an anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) after the bite incident. No patients received rabies immunoglobulin (RIG). The estimated time from dog bite to the onset of signs and symptoms was 110.4 days (range 12-720 days; SD 118.2). The mean length of medical care until death was 21.8 hours (range 1-220 hours; SD 32.6). Less than 50% of patients had prodromal symptoms. The most frequent prodromal symptom was pain or paraesthesia at the bite site (37.6%). The two most common central nervous system infection signs were agitation (89.2%) and confusion (83.3%). Signs of autonomic nervous system dysfunction included hydrophobia (93.1%), hypersalivation (88.2%), and dyspnea (74.4%). On admission, 22 of 102 patients (21.6%) showed paralytic manifestations, while the rest (78.4%) showed furious rabies manifestations. The case-fatality rate was 100%. The rabies virus genome was detected in 50 of 101 patients (49.5%) with the highest detection rate from post-mortem CSF samples.ConclusionsRabies is a major public health problem in Bali. Human fatalities occur because of a lack of knowledge regarding rabies risk, the poor management of dog bites, and the limited availability of RIG. Increasing public awareness of dog bite management, increasing the availability of ARV and RIG, and implementing an island-wide dog vaccination campaign will help prevent human rabies cases.

Dataset Information

Evaluation of Community-Based Dog Welfare and Rabies Project in Sanur, a Sub-district of the Indonesian Island Province of Bali.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets