Maintain and control of vaccination belt along neighbouring rabies infected area

Abstract

The programme of oral vaccination of wildlife started in 1988 in Slovenia and is based on our and the experiences of other countries. Red foxes are the main reservoir of rabies in Slovenia. When the oral vaccination programme started in whole territory of Slovenia in the year 1995, 1089 (28.75%) of tested animals were detected positive among wild and domestic animals. Four years later only 6 (0.5%) positive cases were detected among 1195 tested animals. The number of positive cases been increased again in 2001 to 135 cases. Between 2002 and 2008 the vaccination was done only in the protection zone, a 30 to 50 km wide belt along the southern border with Croatia because no new rabies cases were found in the north-west region of the country. When rabies was reintroduced in Italy in 2008 the vaccination was carried out again in the whole territory of Slovenia. In order to improve the vaccination campaign the stability of two vaccines was measured over 8 weeks. In both vaccines the drop of the virus titre was the highest when baits were placed in the sunlight, but, in the shadow, the virus was detected until day 53 of observation. The aim of this study is to summarise the current status of rabies and to look for the best solutions in the next vaccination campaign.