Pioneering research carried out by a University of Glasgow veterinary scientist has helped to secure a grant close to $10million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund the elimination of rabies in low-income countries.

It is the first time the prestigious charitable organisation has given money to protect human health through animal interventions.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation finances numerous health and education projects throughout the developing world.

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The grant, received by the World Health Organisation’s department of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD), will involve Dr Sarah Cleaveland, of the University of Glasgow’s Vet School and Life Sciences Faculty. Dr Cleaveland will act as a key member of the scientific advisory team.

Amounting to $9,996,674, the money will be spent rolling out a canine vaccination programme - targeting domestic dogs - in three areas: Tanzania, Kwa Zulu Natal in South Africa and the Visayas archipelago of the Philippines.

It is hoped the inoculations will eventually lead to the complete elimination of both dog and human rabies in these regions.

Work on the first full-scale canine vaccination programme has just got underway in Tanzania, the main site of the five-year project. Dr Cleaveland will oversee the programme between Glasgow and the eastern African country. In total 24 districts of Tanzania will participate in this vaccination programme.

Dr Cleaveland said she and the WHO team hope the project would provide the basis of a wider strategy for the prevention and elimination of human rabies in other low income countries.

“Myself and my colleagues at the University of Glasgow are delighted to be part of this pioneering work and we salute the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting the fight against this awful disease,” said Dr Cleaveland.

Rabies is a viral disease that infects domestic and wild animals killing more than 55,000 people every year. It is usually transmitted to humans through the bite of a rabid dog. Once symptoms develop, rabies is fatal to both animals and humans. More than 95% of human-rabies deaths occur in Asia and Africa, with most of the victims being children below the age of 15. Rabies is essentially a neglected disease of poverty, and in Africa and Asia millions of treatments and vaccinations are delivered annually.

The work undertaken by Dr Cleaveland in the Serengeti was done so in conjunction with her colleagues Dan Haydon, Katie Hampson and Tiziana Lembo, also of the University of Glasgow. This included analysis of the genetic sequence of the rabies virus. “Our research found that the circulation of the single virus strain in the Sereneti is driven by domestic dogs. If we are going to successfully eradicate rabies, we need to vaccinate at least 70% of domestic dogs so hitting the virus at its source.

“This hypothesis is founded on work I started in the 1990s which was later developed into a pilot vaccination programme around the Serengeti National Park, again inoculating domestic dogs. This project proved hugely successful and rabies has now disappeared from large areas of the ecosystem.  So we believe that elimination of the disease through dog vaccination is possible.”

The WHO project is expected to increase rabies awareness in the three target countries and demonstrate that a strategy based on dog rabies control is sustainable, cost-effective and can lead to the elimination of the disease in humans. The project will also give a boost to similar initiatives for the control and elimination of rabies in Africa and Asia within the next decade.

For more information on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation please see: www.gatesfoundation.org

For all other media inquiries contact Eleanor Cowie in the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email e.cowie@admin.gla.ac.uk

First published: 17 September 2009

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