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Fighting rabies

33 images Created 10 Mar 2013

The people of Sierra Leone fight back against rabies by educating communities through World Rabies Day celebrations and events. From song and dance to skits to vaccination clinics to school competitions, word got out. Still, not enough has been done to rid the country of this killer for good.

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  • Boys entertained the team of rabies experts and guests with a song and skit.
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  • Our team stopped in a small village after leaving Njala and were instantly surrounded by the people who brought out instruments and sang and danced. We looked at their goat houses, which were quite good. Some of the adults were wearing the Rabies Day shirts. An amazing time!
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  • The Sierra Leone Animal Welfare Society is led by the only veterinarian in the entire country who works on animals. Supported by grants, the SLAWS teams travels primarily around Freetown to spay and neuter dogs and vaccinate them against rabies. With just 5 veterinarians in the country, and all of them near retirement, Sierra Leone will soon be without veterinary care, which will further jeopardize food security in an already poor country.
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  • The SLAWS team of young, dedicated veterinary staff. No veterinarian is among them, but they are trained to spay, neuter, and vaccinate dogs and cats. Reducing the dog population is one part of the solution to reducing rabies and saving lives.
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  • During the 2 weeks I was in Sierra Leone, approximately 5,000 dogs and 400 cats were vaccinated. Cats are much less common.
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  • This boy was watching the people and their dogs in line waiting to get them vaccinated against rabies.
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  • Many worked together to get the dogs vaccinated and keep the lines moving. Kids carried dogs from across town. Some had leashes, many did not. In line, a dog might try to bite someone.
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  • Keeping the rabies vaccine at the proper temperature is important. It's no good  if it warms up. It has to be thrown out. So keeping the "cold chain" intact, from time of manufacture to time of administration, is crucial. Here, workers do a great job keeping the vials of vaccine cold on ice.
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  • Every dog or cat vaccinated was recorded: the owner, address, dog's name, color, gender, and so on. This is important for enforcement of rabies laws as well as for knowing who has been vaccinated and who hasn't. 
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  • Every vaccinated dog got a blue collar signifying it was vaccinated. The collars likely didn't last too long.
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  • There is little in the way to diagnose rabies in dogs and humans. Here is the old lab, demolished during the war. It has been replaced. Unfortunately, the new lab is not equipped properly, and few people are trained in the laboratory techniques necessary to diagnose rabies. Electricity and refrigeration are lacking.
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  • The older brother of this boy died from rabies after being bitten by a rabid dog. That same rabid dog also bit this young boy. Now, 2 months after his bite, we learn about this exposure. The family couldn't afford to travel to Freetown to buy human rabies vaccine to give to the boy to help prevent rabies. They couldn't afford the vaccine either, which is sold at different prices in different pharmacies. We donated money to cover the costs for the family and treating the boy. Unfortunately, there are too many like him who never get the vaccine post-exposure prophylaxis. Africa and Asia remain hot spots for canine rabies. Something has to be done.
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  • The people of Sierra Leone fight back against rabies by educating communities through World Rabies Day celebrations and events in 2010. From song and dance to skits to vaccination clinics to school competitions, word got out. Still, not enough has been done to rid the country of this killer for good. At Njala University in Sierra Leone, the events for World Rabies Day, 2010, kick off with a prayer to an auditorium filled with school kids and adults from surrounding villages. The day is filled with speeches, songs, dance, music and skits -- all about rabies. With no firm way to diagnose rabies in humans or animals, the exact toll of the disease remains unknown. But people do die.
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  • Everyone, young and old, enjoyed the World Rabies Day festivities. This woman and young girl dance and walk along the side of the road as the parade marches on, music blaring. What a wonderful way to learn and have fun at the same time.
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  • Musicians and groups gather, seemingly without much planning, to put on wonderful displays of song and dance as crowds gather and march in the World Rabies Day parades.
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  • These awesome boys jumped in and the crowd parted as they danced in synchrony to the beat. The dance was vibrant and stirred us all.
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  • Africa, Animals, Dog, Sierra Leone, puppies, Veterinary, boy, rabies, world rabies day, health, medical, child, public health, Kenema
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  • This girls sells peanuts to the gathering crowd watching the World Rabies Day parade. I stop and take her picture, paying her a few servings of nuts. After this, I'm her friend for the rest of the day.
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  • A man on his way to the World Rabies Day festivities in Kenema is chased by 5 dogs while he rides on his motorcycle. One dog bites him. I'm asked to have a look, then I take him and the owner of the dogs around the corner to a nearby home, where we borrow soap and a tea pot. I make the dog owner wash the man's wound for 15 minutes. Did the dog have rabies? I told the city councilman to watch the dog for 10 days. If the dog acted oddly or exhibited signs of rabies or died, then the bitten man was to receive the rabies vaccines as treatment. If the dog was alive and well in 10 days, then there was no need for the man to get the vaccines.
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  • The plays, or skits, drew laughter and rapt attention from the audience. Here, two girls can't take their eyes off the stages, where a skit about rabies is taking place.
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  • A skit keeps the kids entertained, but they also learn at the same time. Here, this funny skit shows men in drag posing as dog owners, and of course dog bites and rabies is a large component of the play. It was well received by the kids.
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  • School girls in Sierra Leone learning about dog bites and rabies during World Rabies Day. Here, young muslim girls watch the skits on stage.
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  • While experts spoke on stage about rabies, these boys found a distraction.
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  • A young boy pretends he is bitten by a rabid dog and goes to the doctor for help. For children, the skits were the most engaging. A message hidden within entertainment.<br />
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Rabies occurs in more 150 countries and claims the lives of over 55,000 people each year. Approximately 40% of these deaths are in children under the age of 15 years. The animal that is most responsible for these deaths is the dog. While the dog strain of rabies has been eliminated in the United States, it circulates widely in Asia, India, Africa and Latin America.
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  • Feet and hands say a lot about a person. These bright red shoes of a girls just called out to me. She and I had a good laugh as I took this picture.
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  • The shoes of school girls up on stage during a competition between schools to see which knew the most about rabies.
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  • Dogs roam in Freetown, as seen here. These dogs are lounging just outside the only veterinary clinic in Freetown. There are only 5 veterinarians in all of Sierra Leone, and only 1 of these works with animals, and that is on a part-time basis. Dr. Gudush Jalloh runs the nonprofit organization the Sierra Leone Animal Welfare Society, which strives to reduce and control dog populations through spay and neuter. They also vaccinate the dogs against rabies, when they have the vaccine that is, which is hard to get. Dogs are often used for security, or even hunting in rural areas. But rabies occurs everywhere in the country.
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  • A child sleeps peacefully in this ingenious portable bed. The family was sitting along the road to the Doctors Without Borders hospital, selling fruit and other items. Kids are often the ones bitten by dogs, so educating them and their parents about dogs, behavior around dogs, and what to do if bitten are important aspects in preventing rabies.
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  • Some key elements to preventing rabies in people are: vaccinating dogs regularly, reducing stray dog populations, and educating people on what to do if they are bitten by a dog. Here, one of many children learning about dog bites and rabies as part of World Rabies Day celebrations pauses during a long speech to give me a look. Overall, the event was a long one, trying the children's attention.
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  • It was the skits that got the children's attention. They were funny, but still educational. Here, these kids watch a skit with rapt attention and learn about rabies at the same time. No one knows how common rabies is in the country because reporting is not required and no one collects data. But it's too common, we know that.
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  • A couple of older school children wait to take part in the World Rabies Day parade. Schools were let out for World Rabies Day in the town of Makeni. Bright uniforms gave the children a colorful, excitable look. This young man quickly came over and tried to claim they were more than just friends. She set him straight.
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  • Part of the World Rabies Day celebrations was to visit several towns or large villages. Schools were let out, morning  parades with bands marched to the town hall with eager children dancing to the music, banners proclaiming World Rabies Day fluttering. At the destination there would be speeches and skits and more music.
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  • This young girl is enjoying the parade she is in. She's learning about rabies and helping call attention to this killer disease, but having fun while doing it. Fun is essential to learning. If it's not fun, people don't want to listen, which makes getting your message across a lot harder.
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