An animal welfare lobby group is currently conducting a mass anti-rabies vaccination on dogs, cats and donkeys in Machakos County.
The Africa Network For Animal Welfare - NGO launched the three-day exercise at Wamunyu ward in Mwala subcounty that started on Tuesday.
ANAW in partnership with Machakos County Government and a team of veterinarians from USA led by Julie Keli target to vaccinate 8,000 dogs within the specified time.
“We are here working with ANAW to eradicate rabies in Kenya. We are for the three days focusing on Machakos County vaccinating cats, dogs and donkeys,” Keli told reporters on Tuesday.
“I’m happy with the turnout and numbers of the animals that we are able to treat. We also deworm and treat for ticks and fleece as well,” Keli said.
After Machakos, Keli said they will move to Voi to conduct the same exercise for two days.
“The goal of vaccinating for rabies is to protect the dogs against rabies, protecting our children who could get dog bites while going to school and the entire population. Many a times dogs bite and with the bites, anyone can contract rabies,” Keli said.
She said there was need to completely eradicate rabies since it’s 100 per cent fatal.
“We want to protect children and people in general from this disease. I want to increase the animal welfare from all around the world, not only my home in Colorado, but here too. We are here to help,” Keli said.
Dennis Bahati from ANAW said the National Rabies Elimination Strategy launched by the government in 2014 had identified Machakos County as one of those with burden of rabies.
“Machakos was identified as one of the counties that have a burden of this specific disease,” Bahati said.
He said the county was selected as one of the pilot areas to kick start a strategy that the government had launched to ensure that it was rabies’ free by 2030.
“This specific strategy has several approaches. The three main ones are; mass vaccination campaigns like this one we are doing, dog population management by controlling number of stray animals within this area and community awareness and sensitization on disease prevention and control,” Bahati said.
“Our target is to reach 8, 000 dogs and cats, and so far we have managed half of that target. We are optimistic that by the time we are done, we will have covered the whole of Wamunyu ward,” Bahati said.
“We started off in Machakos subcounty and now we are in Mwala. So far, we are done with four wards, this is the fifth ward, Wamunyu,” he said.
He said they started the campaign in Machakos in 2016 by doing a dog ecology that gave them an estimate of dogs population in Machakos County.
Bahati said the study revealed that there were 259, 000 dogs in the county by end of 2016.
“Over the years, we have been doing vigorous campaigns coupled with dog population management and also county awareness sensitization.
"We hope that by close of next year, we shall have finalised in this county because the target is to ensure we vaccinate 70 per cent of the estimated population within consecutive period of three years," Bahati added.
He added: "So far, we have seen tremendous results including a drop in reported cases of bites and incidences of rabies both in human and animals."
Mutinda Mutheka said the free services had enabled him save more than Sh10, 000 that he could have paid a private veterinary officer to treat his five dogs and a donkey.
“These dogs are my security both at home and farm. Vaccinating them is damn expensive, I pay a private vet Sh2, 000 to attend to each of the dogs and also by drugs as additional costs,” Mutheka said.
Milka Muthini said most locals don’t take their animals for vaccination since the services were expensive hence unaffordable by the majority.
“I brought my dog, three donkeys and a cat for vaccination against rabies. I could have spent Sh5, 000 for the services, but I have received them free of charge,” Muthini said.
