Haiti - Health : Resumption of the national rabies vaccination campaign
Almost a year after the end of the national rabies vaccination campaign launched in November 2019, this campaign will resume and end in the West department from March 8 to 30, 2021. For the realization of this last phase, the Ministry of Agriculture, through its Health Protection Unit, received financial and technical support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO).
The overall objective of this campaign is to vaccinate 80% of the dog population estimated at 400,000 dogs throughout Haiti in order to control rabies and limit its transmission in other animal species such as cattle, goats, pigs and equines all susceptible to rabies disease.
In Haiti, the Ministries of Agriculture and Public Health are directly affected by this disease. "This synergy must continue, because rabies is far from being eradicated in Haiti" insists Branly Eugène, the Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture, adding "The instructions and guidelines given by the State to the services concerned indicate the appropriate measures that must be taken to break, on the one hand, the cycle of rabies virus infection at the level of reservoir vectors to stop animal-human transmission and on the other hand part, to sensitize the actors in order to effectively improve the notification of cases of bites and attacks by dogs for the care of the animals concerned and of people victims of bites."
Branly Eugène invites all owners of dogs that are the main vector of rabies transmission to have them vaccinated. He sees this campaign as a way to raise awareness about rabies in order to save lives and work towards the elimination of canine and human rabies in Haiti.
