Study of the dog population and the rabies control activities in the Mirigama area of Sri Lanka

The national health authorities of Sri Lanka have adopted a combined strate gy of rabies vaccination and stray dog removal to control endemic dog rabie s. Despite the control efforts, an increase of animal and human rabies case s has occurred since 1994. As a consequence, a project to evaluate the nati onal rabies control program has been started and a study focussing on the d og population and rabies control activities in a limited area of Mirigama w as conducted. Information on canine abundance and the accessibility of dogs for rabies vaccination was obtained by a household survey, vaccination of dogs against rabies at several vaccination points, collar-marking, and tran sect line recapture. The number of unvaccinated clogs was estimated by usin g Bayesian methodology. The estimated number of dogs per square kilometre w as 87 (95% credibility interval: 80, 93) for owned dogs and 108 (100, 116) for owned and ownerless dogs, Coverage after the immunisation campaign was 57.6% (53.3, 61.9%) if vaccination at the vaccination points was considered and 66% (60.4, 72.0%) if recently provided vaccination by private veterina rians was also taken into account. The proportion of households with at lea st one dog vaccinated varied between 59.1 and 94.2% within the catchment ar ea of the different vaccination points. Unvaccinated dogs were puppies (12% ), ownerless dogs (57%), and owned dogs, which were not presented for vacci nation (31%). In order to improve the rabies immunisation coverage among do es and to achieve complete elimination of rabies it was recommended that th e 95% catchment area of each vaccination point be assessed, the distributio n of vaccination points in the vaccination area be redefined if necessary, a system for the vaccination of dogs missing the vaccination campaign for d og owner-specific reasons be established, and an inexpensive marking system be used for vaccinated dogs. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights res erved.