Mission Rabies

Project overview

Globally, rabies still claims the lives of approximately 59,000 people each year, with a staggering 20,000 of these fatalities occurring in India.

According to the World Health Organization, up to 60% of rabies deaths in the country are children under the age of fifteen.

This means that more children die from rabies in India than any other nation.

Mission Rabies was launched in India with an initial campaign – where over 60,000 dogs were vaccinated across 14 cities in just 4 weeks.

In collaboration with local governments, our work in India has developed to encompass comprehensive vaccination, education and surveillance components with the country becoming a global beacon of progress.

In some areas of India, after years of successfully vaccinating over 70% of the canine population, our focus has moved to maintaining this hard work through robust surveillance efforts.

Key stats

1,973,820 dogs vaccinated in India to date
2,748,396 children educated in India to date
121,071 teachers trained in India to date

Goa, India

We started our mission to end rabies in Goa. Since our initial campaign our programme has grown from strength to strength.

Since 2013, we have worked, in collaboration with the Government of Goa, to implement an effective rabies control strategy and eliminate canine-mediated rabies. We have established comprehensive vaccination, education and surveillance programmes across Goa.

Over 4 million doses of rabies vaccine have been delivered to dogs in Goa since 2013 in the largest continuous rabies control effort to have ever taken place in India.

Ground-breaking progress has been made in Goa, demonstrating that canine rabies elimination is feasible in India through mass dog vaccination.

Crucially, our programmes are working and Goa became the first Indian State to be declared a ‘Rabies Controlled Area’ in June 2021, with rabies being successfully eliminated from most parts of the state. This was a landmark achievement, setting a precedent and a roadmap for other States to follow.

Since 2021, our strategy is Goa has now shifted to focus on community engagement and intensifying surveillance, especially at the State border to keep rabies under control in Goa. No other Indian state had reached this level of rabies control before.

Project partners - Goa

The Government of Goa
Give Goa Dogs
Panjim Animal Welfare Society
Bangalore Veterinary College
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences
India Project for Animals and Nature

Mumbai, India

Mumbai has a large free roaming dog population and rabies was declared a notifiable disease by Maharashtra State Health Department in 2022.

A partnership was with the local government to work towards tackling rabies in the country’s most populated city.

We commenced work in Mumbai to deliver technical guidance to the local government and support with the implementation of an effective rabies control programme.

Initially, a pilot campaign was delivered in 2023 across six Mumbai wards, where, in just ten-days, more than 9,000 dogs were vaccinated.

This provided valuable insight for the 2024 mass vaccination campaign – building upon the success of this initiative and addressing key areas for improvement – which saw almost 27,000 dogs vaccinated against rabies.

We are now establishing education and surveillance programmes, alongside growing our vaccination coverage.