Use of geographic information systems in rabies vaccination campaigns.

Objective: To develop a method to assist in the design and assessment of animal rabies control campaigns.

Methods: A methodology was developed based on geographic information systems to estimate the animal (canine and feline) population and density per census tract and per subregion (known as "Subprefeituras") in the city of São Paulo (Southeastern Brazil) in 2002. The number of vaccination units in a given region was estimated to achieve a certain proportion of vaccination coverage.