Progress towards rabies elimination from Pemba Island, Southern Tanzania

Rabies is endemic in Tanzania and has circulated on Pemba Island since the late 1990s. In 2010, an elimination programme was initiated in Southern Tanzania to demonstrate that human rabies deaths can be eliminated through mass dog vaccinations. We used active surveillance approaches to investigate the dynamics of rabies across the area where this programme was implemented.

Objective

Using active surveillance approaches to investigate the transmission dynamics of rabies on Pemba Island and across Southern Tanzania, whilst a large-scale dog vaccination program was underway, to gain a greater understanding of the dynamics of infection as the disease is driven towards elimination.