Rabies vaccinations at the rural-urban divide: successes and barriers to dog rabies vaccination programs from a rural and urban campaign in Zambia.

Introduction: Dog vaccination against rabies is considered one of the most effective strategies at preventing human deaths from rabies and is a key strategy for eliminating dog-mediated human rabies deaths. Traditional vaccination approaches in Zambia rarely collect operational data to assess coverage and inform subsequent campaigns.

Methods: Following mass vaccination campaigns in rural (Itezhi tezhi) and urban (Lusaka) communities, we evaluated vaccination coverage achieved during the campaigns and characterized and estimated the dog population in these communities.