Tactics and Economics of Oral Rabies Vaccination | CDC EID

Volume 15, Number 8–August 2009
Synopsis
Tactics and Economics of Wildlife Oral Rabies Vaccination, Canada and the United States
Ray T. Sterner, Martin I. Meltzer, Stephanie A. Shwiff, and Dennis Slate
Author affiliations: US Department of Agriculture, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (R.T. Sterner, S.A. Shwiff); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (M.I. Meltzer); and US Department of Agriculture, Concord, New Hampshire, USA (D. Slate)

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Abstract
Progressive elimination of rabies in wildlife has been a general strategy in Canada and the United States; common campaign tactics are trap–vaccinate–release (TVR), point infection control (PIC), and oral rabies vaccination (ORV). TVR and PIC are labor intensive and the most expensive tactics per unit area (≈$616/km2 [in 2008 Can$, converted from the reported $450/km2 in 1991 Can$] and ≈$612/km2 [$500/km2 in 1999 Can$], respectively), but these tactics have proven crucial to elimination of raccoon rabies in Canada and to maintenance of ORV zones for preventing the spread of raccoon rabies in the United States. Economic assessments have shown that during rabies epizootics, costs of human postexposure prophylaxis, pet vaccination, public health, and animal control spike. Modeling studies, involving diverse assumptions, have shown that ORV programs can be cost-efficient and yield benefit:cost ratios >1.0.

Rabies continues to pose major public health concerns in Canada and the United States (1–5). Effective pet vaccination programs have controlled rabies in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) in both countries, but rabies persists in wildlife reservoirs. In 2007, a total of 6,776 cases in wildlife were reported for the contiguous United States (1).

Oral rabies vaccination (ORV) is an evolving rabies control technology for use in wildlife (6). It involves distribution of baits containing orally immunogenic vaccines onto the landscape, thereby targeting wildlife to establish population immunity and prevent spread or eliminate specific rabies variants (6).

We reviewed the literature on ORV programs and economics in Canada and the United States. The first use of ORV sought to control rabies in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in Switzerland; subsequent programs were reported throughout much of western Europe (7,8). Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg were deemed free of the red fox variant by 2001 (8).

ORV in Ontario, Canada
Arctic Fox–Variant Rabies in Red Foxes

During 1989–1995, ORV was used in Ontario to progressively eliminate arctic fox (Alopex lagopus)–variant rabies that had spilled into (i.e., had been transmitted to another species) red foxes and spread southward (9). Each year ORV baits were distributed in southern Ontario (≈20 baits/km2, from aircraft or by hand, over 8,850–29,590 km2). The strategy was termed progressive elimination and resembled an expanding ORV wedge, which started near the center of the outbreak and expanded during successive years (Figure 1).

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