Proceedings of the Association of Institutions of Tropical Veterinary Medicine Does Control of Animal Infectious Risks Offer a New International Perspective?

In the discussion about policies and strategies for rabies prevention in developing countries, intervention costs arise as a major issue. We organized two pilot mass vaccination campaigns for dogs against rabies under equal conditions in N’Djaména, Chad. The first one was free of charge for the dog owners; the second one, four years later, assessed willingness to pay. 3000 dogs were vaccinated in the free campaign, 393 dogs in the second. The vaccination coverage and costs are assessed in both cases, showing the cost per dog vaccinated for the public sector and for society. In the pilot mass campaign with 3000 dogs, the average cost per dog was 1.69 € to the public and 2.45 € to society. During the second campaign only about 13% of animal owners were willing to pay for rabies vaccination at a rate of 3 € per animal. Nevertheless, mass dog vaccination could be a comparatively cheap and ethical way to both control the disease in animals and prevent human cases and exposure, especially in developing countries. Our result shows that effective rabies control by parenteral vaccination is a public responsibility and cannot be achieved by private funding only.