Assessment of knowledge and practice towards rabies and determinants of dog rabies vaccination in Sumbawanga municipality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Rabies is a viral zoonotic disease which is nealrly always fatal caused by lyssavirus. The annual human deaths due to dog-mediated rabies is estimated to be 59 000 globally where in African alone 21476 human deaths are reported to occur each year. In Tanzania according to the active surveillance which was conducted in 2002 estimated human rabies mortality to be 1,499 per year..The vacination coverage of dogs against rabies in countiwise is not well known but according to study done to kilosa previous year indicated vaccination of rabies to be only 24.4 % Vaccination coverage of dogs in Sumbawanga Municipality has been very low 2015 (11%) ,2016 (22%) and 2017 was 28% despite the high dog bites cases in human and associated human dog-mediated rabies deaths. Broad objective: This study was conducted to assess knowledge and practice towards rabies and Determinants of dog rabies vaccination in Sumbawanga municipality Material and method: A cross sectional survey with two stage sampling were used based on the WHO Expanded Program on Immunization coverage , semi structured questionnaire was used to collect information related to vaccination of dogs from households. A set of questions related to rabies knowledge and practice were used to score respondents. The data were analysed to determine mean proportions,the Odds ratio was used as the measure of association between outcome variable and independent one was significant at P < 0.05 and logistic regression was used for modeling . STATA13 software was used for analysis of the data. Results Three hundred and sixty households enrolled had a population of 498 dogs with 48.2% (n=240) dogs vaccinated against rabies within the last 12 month. The vaccination of dogs at household level were statistically significantly associated with history of being exposed to rabies (OR=3.6, 95% CI 1.29 - 10.05), Education,were by secondary education and above (OR=8.72, 95% CI 2.6 -29.5) , Proper feeding of dog (OR=4.0 95% CI 2.09-5.91), Availability of vaccine (OR=1.72 95% CI 1.08-2.75), Availability of Vet/Field officer (OR=9.64 95% CI 1.28-72.64) and Sex of dogs were more males were vaccinated than females (OR=1.5 95% CI 1.03-5.91). The overall respondents with knowledge and good practice of rabies were 83.6%(n=301) and 78.9% (n=282) respectively . Conclusion: Though knowledge of rabies is adequate among households of Sumbawanga municipality, dogs vaccination coverage was below the 70% recommended for herd immunity. Mass vaccination campaign and law enforcement is needed.