According to the Director of the Sierra Leone Animal Welfare Society, Dr Abdul Gudush Jalloh, the campaign will start in Brookfields, Dwarzark and in New England in the west of Freetown.
He told Politico that it would include a dog population census and a knowledge, attitude and practise survey of dog management in the country.
“There will also later be an anti-rabies vaccination campaign throughout the country as part of a five-year programme to eliminate rabies in Sierra Leone”, said the man who has spent decades in animal health care.
The campaign is part of an overall goal of ending rabies in the world by 2030, which was a major outcome of the “Global Conference on Global Elimination of Dog-mediated Human Rabies”.
Sierra Leone was chosen among countries in West Africa to implement a national strategy for the elimination of dog-mediated rabies by 2020 which will be a model for the rest of the continent to eliminate the “silent killer disease”.
The National Livestock Animal Welfare and Rabies Control Task force (NLAWRCT) will also be launched.
According to the ministry of agriculture, rabies is endemic in Sierra Leone and the situation is made worse by the fact that the country has one of the highest densities of stray dogs in the world. Dogs are potential carriers of the virus.
