Evaluation of methods for short-term marking of domestic dogs for rabies control.

Rabies transmitted by domestic dogs is a serious yet neglected public health threat in many underserved communities in Africa and Asia. Achieving 70% vaccination coverage in dog populations through annual mass vaccination campaigns is an effective means of controlling the disease in these communities. Evaluating the extent to which this target coverage is achieved requires either accurate pre-campaign estimates of the dog population size or accurate estimates of the coverage attained by conducting post-vaccination surveys.