World Rabies Day is marked on September 28th each year, with campaigns to educate communities on the dangers of the disease and ways to avoid or eliminate it. The Ministry of Agriculture provided the vaccines, while VSF-Germany supplied other essentials, including drugs. Makerere University, VetConnekt, and private practitioners contributed personnel and expertise.
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Community members enthusiastically lining up to have their dogs and pets vaccinated.
The World Anti-Rabies Week closed with a call on community members to only maintain pets and dogs they can afford. Dr. Dickson Tayebwa from Makerere University College of Veterinary Medicine and Executive Director of VetConnekt, a non-profit organization committed to animal welfare in Uganda, emphasized that responsible pet ownership is crucial in the fight against rabies, a zoonotic viral disease that kills an estimated 60,000 people annually.
Dr. Tayebwa was one of the team leaders at a free service mobile animal clinic held at Mt. Carmel Catholic Church-Busega on Sunday, which was among many similar clinics held in Kampala in commemoration of World Anti-Rabies Day. The Busega clinic was the last of five organized by a consortium of stakeholders across Kampala, including in Nagguru, Lukuli, Mpereerwe, Masanafu, and Busega.
The clinics provided rabies vaccination, spaying, and neutering of dogs and other pets at no cost. Stakeholders, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, VSF-Germany, VetConnekt, Uganda Small Animal Practitioners Association (USAPA), KCCA, and private veterinarians, provided awareness and resources for the clinics.
World Rabies Day is marked on September 28th each year, with campaigns to educate communities on the dangers of the disease and ways to avoid or eliminate it. The Ministry of Agriculture provided the vaccines, while VSF-Germany supplied other essentials, including drugs. Makerere University, VetConnekt, and private practitioners contributed personnel and expertise.
Dr. Tayebwa reported that in Kampala alone, they vaccinated over one thousand dogs and cats and performed hundreds of surgeries to control the animal population. He explained the importance of spaying and neutering, saying, "Spaying involves a surgical procedure where the uterus and ovaries of the female animal are removed to stop it from conceiving and reproducing unnecessarily. On the other hand, neutering involves a procedure in which the testicles of male animals are removed to stop them from providing semen."
Dr. Tayebwa addressed concerns about the ethics of these procedures, stating that they are a humane alternative to the previously used method of poisoning. "Activists thought it was very harsh to kill the dogs and cats using poison. For us, our approach is that it is better to control the numbers and provide good care to the animals you can manage," he said.
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He emphasized that rabies is primarily spread through bites from animals like dogs and cats, which use biting as a defense mechanism. "It is hard to find a cow or goat biting a person. Actually, ninety-nine percent of the deaths are caused by dog and cat bites," he noted. Symptoms of rabies include fever, sweating, and weakness in the initial six days, escalating to irritability, excessive salivation, aggressive behavior, and biting without provocation.
Dr. Arnold Lubega, head of the National Anti-Rabies Initiative, explained that Uganda is working towards a 2030 goal to eradicate rabies. He stressed the importance of immediate first aid after an animal bite. "Once bitten by an animal, the victim should wash the wound for a couple of minutes and allow it to bleed so that the viruses contained in the animal's saliva do not remain in the victim's body. In the shortest time, the victim should be taken to a health facility to get an anti-rabies shot, which is available for free at Health Centre IVs and referral hospitals," Dr. Lubega advised.
In addition to vaccinations, stakeholders promoted the idea of "family planning for animals" as a form of humane population control. "Why we are doing family planning for the animals is because we focus on animal care, and activists emphasize animal rights. That is where we differ. Numbers do more harm than good, so we do family planning," Dr. Lubega said.
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The anti-rabies campaign, which was also conducted in Mityana and Kasese districts, resulted in over 3,000 vaccinations and more than 500 surgeries. The vaccine remains effective for a year, after which the animal should receive a booster shot.
Dr. Lubega underscored the importance of responsible pet ownership, noting, "We want communities to have dogs and cats they can manage. Food is a problem even for humans, so people just end up giving the dogs leftovers, but they also want fresh food. That is how they end up eating the neighbors' chickens."
