Reducing spatial heterogeneity in coverage improves the effectiveness of dog vaccination campaigns against rabies.

ABSTRACT: Vaccination programs are the mainstay of control for many infectious diseases. Heterogeneous coverage is hypothesised to reduce vaccination programme effectiveness, but this impact has not been quantified in real systems. We address this gap using fine-scale data from two decades of rabies contact tracing and dog vaccination campaigns in Serengeti district, Tanzania. We also aimed to identify drivers of continued circulation of rabies in the district despite annual vaccination campaigns. Using generalised linear mixed models, we find that current focal (village-level) dog rabies incidence decreases with increasing recent focal vaccination coverage. However, current focal incidence depends most on recent incidence, both focally and in the wider district, consistent with high population conn

SUBMITTER: Ferguson EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11482771 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature