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Rabies in Ngorongoro, Serengeti history
2007-08-13 08:54:03
By Emmanuel Chacha, Serengeti
Rabies that has been threatening people and wild animals within Serengeti and Ngorongoro ecosystems has been tremendously put under control in the last five years under the Carnivore Disease Project.
The Project Coordinator, Dr Ernest Mjingo told The Guardian that during the period more than 175,000 dogs had been vaccinated, an average of 35, 000 animals per year.
He explained that dogs were the main carriers and spreaders of rabies virus, hence the project focused on vaccinating dogs in Serengeti and Ngorongoro ecosystem to protect the transmission to carnivore wild animals.
He added that the project involved 154 villages in seven districts of Serengeti, Tarime, Bunda, Magu, Bariadi, Meatu and Ngorongoro and that the multimillion project was implemented in collaboration with the relevant district livestock development departments.
`Before initiating this project in 2002, there were many reported cases of the disease within the parks and nearby villages. Some diseases such as this are transmitted from the bordering villages.
For instance, in 1994 more than 1,000 lions died of canine distemper virus. The aim of establishing this project is to have conservation through disease control and monitoring,` he said.
Dr Mjingo noted that the vaccination was given free of charge to wananchi and that it was much cheaper than treatment of rabies patient.
`You can imagine that the vaccination costs between 500 and 1,000/- per dog per year because a dog should be vaccinated every year.
But it costs up to 80,000/- to treat a person suffering from rabies. And medicines for rabies are not available in many hospitals.
An infected dog can bite up to 15 people. So you can understand that vaccinating dogs is more cost effective than investing in treatment of rabies patients,` he maintained.
He, however, said that despite being highlighted by the government as one of the hazardous outbreak diseases, rabies had been given less priorities compared to other diseases such as malaria, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis.
The coordinator appealed to the district councils through their livestock development departments to set aside funds for rabies vaccination since they would not always keep on depending on foreign donors.
The project is funded by Intervet of the UK that provides vaccinations and working gears and Lincolin Park Zoo of the US, which provides funds for operation costs.
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