A local Rotary club is bolstering Washington State University’s effort to limit rabies deaths in Kenya and Tanzania – a 10-year commitment by the university that has just surpassed 3 million dogs vaccinated against the virus.
WSU’s Rabies Free Africa program, housed within the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health, has long partnered with communities in the two rabies endemic African nations to eliminate the virus. According to the World Health Organization, rabies causes at least 59,000 deaths annually — primarily from infected dog bites and scratches — with children accounting for half of the victims.
The partnership was a dream for the South Puget Sound Rotary Club of Olympia. Rotary club President Dave Lovely, along with club member and retired veterinarian Dr. Mike Murphy, visited Tanzania for 11 days in May when WSU led a four-day mass rabies vaccination of more than 2,700 dogs.
“It’s really a powerful thing to see and be a part of because it truly, truly is saving lives of dogs, wildlife, and people,” Murphy said. “Considering nearly half of rabies infected dog bites are to children, it’s so compelling, and it really doesn’t take many dollars to do an awful lot of good.”
The rabies vaccines administered through the program are donated by manufacturer Merck Animal Health, but the support of the South Puget Sound Rotary Club of Olympia helped cover the cost of vaccine import taxes, rabies vaccination certificates, and promotional posters and materials for the program’s mass dog vaccinations. The money was raised through fundraising activities of the South Puget Sound Rotary club and a matching grant donation from Rotary District 5020, a part of the Rotary Foundation
In addition to the number of dogs and miles their owners walked to get them to the vaccination sites, Murphy said it’s the commitment by the local Tanzanians employed through the WSU program that sticks with him.
“Even after everything was closed up and we’re leaving, a little girl showed up with a dog and they unpacked everything to vaccinate that dog, and that was after they vaccinated 400 dogs that day,” Murphy said. “It was really quite a special opportunity for us to experience their world, all the good they do, and how dedicated they are.”
With the four-day mass dog vaccination event behind them, Murphy and Lovely are looking for other ways to support the WSU rabies program. Using their Rotary network, Lovely is working with the local Tanzanian Rotary club of Arusha to apply for a global Rotary grant.
“They’re very experienced at doing global grants and managing global grant projects, so we’re very optimistic that we’ll be able to pull off a larger project,” Lovely said. “We want to really make a big impact.”
The global grant is a bigger effort, requiring a more in-depth project plan and promotion of the project with other Rotary clubs to amplify the work that is being done. Global grants have a minimum budget of $30,000 and a maximum award of $400,000.
Murphy, who was a rabies inspector in Chambers County, Alabama, before he ever went to veterinary school, said rabies can be controlled, and it begins with supporting the cause.
“Rabies is still a real disease, but in the United States it is nothing like Africa and Southeast Asia because we have large scale vaccination programs, and that’s what WSU is duplicating around the world,” Murphy said.