Community engagement on the rabies control programme in the Northern Communal Area (NCA) of Namibia.

Community engagement is essential in rabies control programmes to foster community commitment and support for government interventions. It ensures identification of rabies hotspots, prioritising interventions, improving knowledge of the dog population and registration, and supporting dog vaccination campaigns to achieve high vaccination coverage. Community engagement also strengthens rabies surveillance and reporting systems to local and national authorities and promotes community ownership of programmes. Additionally, it increases public awareness of rabies, encourages early reporting and response to animal bite cases, and provides rapid response to dog bites, ultimately preventing human deaths due to rabies.

Notably, successful community-based rabies surveillance programmes in rural areas of Africa, Asia, and also in Haiti have identified additional rabies exposures and bite victims, referring them for appropriate medical care and thus averting potential human rabies deaths. The ongoing fight to eliminate dog-mediated rabies by 2030 would benefit significantly from more active community involvement in surveillance, prevention, and control efforts. Investing in rabies control at the community level will save lives and strengthen a resilient, One Health-based health system capable of addressing other health threats at the animal-human-environmental interface, including pandemics.

To strengthen community engagement in rabies control in the NCA, consultative meetings were held from 7-14 May 2024 in Oshana and from 28-30 August 2024 in Omusati, involving 165 community leaders from Oshana and 285 from Omusati regions. These meetings, conducted by the Directorate of Veterinary Services (DVS) with WOAH’s financial and technical support, focused on the following objectives:

• Identifying community leaders/village heads to support rabies elimination efforts in the NCA, Namibia.
• Training community leaders on rabies, responsible dog ownership, rabies prevention and control, dog vaccination campaigns, rabies surveillance, handling dog bites, and improving health-seeking behavior.
• Encouraging active community participation in dog vaccination campaigns.
• Establishing and strengthening community-based surveillance systems for early detection and reporting of potential rabies cases.
• Comparing vaccination coverage and surveillance efforts between pilot communities trained in community engagement on rabies and those not provided with rabies awareness education.