Project

Malawi is among the world’s hotspots for rabies and this vicious disease poses a huge burden to the country.

Blantyre, the commercial capital in the south of the country, is the city where a single hospital reported the highest number of child rabies deaths anywhere in Africa. We are going to make it the lowest!

Together with our partner charity, the Blantyre SPCA, we launched our Malawi campaign in May 2015 and vaccinated more than 35,000 dogs in just 20 days, achieving a vaccination coverage of 70% of the dog population in Blantyre. Our project will continue for the next 3 years to prevent transmission of the disease between dogs and to people, maintaining the 70% coverage.

Key elements of our project in Blantyre are:

• Working with a team of local staff and international volunteers, we will ensure at least 70% of the dog population are vaccinated against rabies each year – recommended by the World Health Organization as a proven means of preventing rabies in people.
• Our powerful new Mission Rabies smartphone app will be used to track vaccination coverage and to provide valuable scientific data on the rabies situation and the dog population in Blantyre.
• Our successful education campaign and materials, educating children about the dangers of rabies and how to behave around dogs to prevent dog bites. During the month of May 2015 our education campaign reached more than 40,000 children in Blantyre.
• Our sister charity, Worldwide Veterinary Service, will be providing veterinary infrastructure for the BSPCA by setting up a brand new veterinary clinic for the city and running training courses for local veterinarians and animal handlers.
• We established links to the authorities to set up a rabies surveillance network, making sure that every rabid dog is reported and our response teams can react to the situation, protecting the people and other animals in the area.
• In 2016, we have continued our project in three key areas of Malawi, and have vaccinated over 90,000 dogs against rabies, achieving a 76% coverage.