United Against Rabies is a forum pooling resources from governments, vaccine producers, researchers and NGOs to fight the spread of rabies. They have published a UAR toolbox to aid campaigns across the world, included economic calculators, surveillance and information tools, courses for training and a media library. MR uses several of these tools to facilitate their campaigns, to ensure the campaign is planned and executed in the most efficient way possible.
RabEcon
RabEcon, the Rabies Economic model, is a spreadsheet-based modelling tool for use by Government Agency Officials, Policymakers, Rabies control program managers, Vaccination program personnel and similar who need to access the efficacy of a Rabies control program in terms of cost, time and effort required. It uses mathematical formulae from Zinsstag et al, 2009, and SEIRS models from Bjørnstad et al, 2020 to determine outputs from user defined inputs.
Inputs include:
- Human population
- Humans per km2
- Human birth rate (per 1,000 population)
- Human life expectancy
- Number of humans per dog (Human: Dog ratio)
- Dog population
- Dogs per km2
- Dog birth rate (per 1,000 dogs)
- Dog life expectancy, years
- Dog-Human transmission rate
Kunkel, A., Jeon, S., Joseph, H.C. et al. The urgency of resuming disrupted dog rabies vaccination campaigns: a modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis. Sci Rep 11, 12476 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92067-5 Zinsstag J, Dürr S, Penny MA, Mindekem R, Roth F, Menendez Gonzalez S, Naissengar S, Hattendorf J. Transmission dynamics and economics of rabies control in dogs and humans in an African city. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Sep 1;106(35):14996-5001. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0904740106 Bjørnstad, O.N., Shea, K., Krzywinski, M. et al. The SEIRS model for infectious disease dynamics. Nat Methods 17, 557–558 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-020-0856-2
VaxPlan
VaxPlan is provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It provides expected cost and coverage for a vaccination program, along with the amount of vaccine required, depending on the user input, which includes:
- Number of dogs in the program area
- How many of those dogs are confined, sometimes confined, or never confined
- How many vaccines are for parental or oral administration
- The type of vaccination strategy i.e. door-to-door, central point, capture-vaccinate-release etc.
- The expected vaccine efficacy by method
VaxPlan link here
Global Dog Rabies Elimination Pathway (GDREP)
GDREP is a spreadsheet-based to predict workload, budget and capacity needs for an elimination campaign.
Inputs include:
- Human population
- Percent urban
- Human-to-dog ratio
- Current dog vaccination coverage
- Logistic data for the campaigns (available vaccinators, dog vaccination rates, campaign duration)
- An estimated cost per vaccinated dog
Eduardo A. Undurraga, Ryan M. Wallace, Athman watondo, Jesse D. Blanton, S.M. Thumbi, & Mathew Muturi. (2017). Tool for Eliminating Dog-Mediated Human Rabies through Mass Dog Vaccination Campaigns. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 64(12), 2114–2116. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cix118 Wallace, R. M., Undurraga, E. A., Blanton, J. D., Cleaton, J., & Franka, R. (2017). Elimination of dog-mediated human rabies deaths by 2030: Needs assessment and alternatives for progress based on dog vaccination. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 4(FEB). https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00009