Integrated Community-Based Reporting and Field Diagnostics for Improved Rabies Surveillance in Rural Laikipia, Kenya.

Rabies vaccination in domestic dog populations has increased globally in a bid to protect human health. Surveillance efforts, however, are inconsistent in endemic regions such as in sub-Saharan Africa, due to fragmented reporting and limited diagnostic capacity for suspected cases, limiting successful monitoring and evaluation of vaccination campaigns. Here, we conducted a pilot study aiming to strengthen rabies surveillance by combining community-based surveillance with field-based diagnostic testing in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in central Kenya; communities which are frequently marginalised from health systems.

Geographic Distribution of Rabies Virus and Genomic Sequence Alignment of Wild and Vaccine Strains, Kenya.

Rabies, a viral disease that causes lethal encephalitis, kills ≈59,000 persons worldwide annually, despite availability of effective countermeasures. Rabies is endemic in Kenya and is mainly transmitted to humans through bites from rabid domestic dogs. We analyzed 164 brain stems collected from rabid animals in western and eastern Kenya and evaluated the phylogenetic relationships of rabies virus (RABV) from the 2 regions.