Between 28 September and 6 October, the vaccination campaign of dogs against rabies and sterilization of dogs was carried out in the districts of Mecula and Mavago, which included domestic dogs and cats. A total of 165 dogs of the 315 registered by the Guardians Teams (MOMS) of 155 owners were vaccinated, corresponding to 53% of the canine population within the Niassa Special Reserve (NSR). For this year the theme of the campaign was 'rabies: all for 1, one health for all'.
This activity had as main objectives the control of the canine population in the human settlements of NSR, the promotion of awareness of the population of NSR on the negative impacts of rabies and other zoonotic diseases, as well as rabies control to safeguard public health and ensure that diseases are not spread between domestic and wild animals and vice versa.
This initiative is intended to maintain the level of vaccination and sterilization coverage in all NSR human settlements, and to eliminate the incidence of disease incidents involving domestic dogs in the NSR and to have the registration and complete treatment of all domestic dogs belonging to local communities.
It is worth noting that the program began, with raising domestic animals through the guardians of wildlife, in all communities of the Niassa Special Reserve, and subsequently followed the awareness for each dog owner (door to door)promotion of lectures in schools with teachers and students, lectures with community leaders, and reproduction of communication material on local radios, culminating in vaccination and sterilization.
This activity was organised by WCS together with its partners, namely Niassa Carnivore Project (Mariri Investments), Mozambique Wildlife Alliance, Luwire Conservancy and the Mecula and Mavago District Governments, through their respective District Economic Activities Services, supported by USAID, European Union and UNDP.