Abstract:

Background: Rabies is a fatal zoonotic disease of significant public health importance. Domestic dogs are the main reservoir and transmitter of this disease particularly in developing countries. Community awareness about rabies is one of the key components for prevention. This study describes the knowledge, attitude and practices about rabies disease and ant rabies vaccination among household’s dog owners at Kahama municipal council, Shinyanga.

Methodology: This was a cross sectional community-based study which was done from 1st May 2021 to 30th May 2021. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data among 422 study respondents, data were then analysed using SPSS statistical software version 20.

Result/Discussion: A total of 422 household respondents were interviewed, of which 315 (74.64%) were males and 107 (25.36%) were females. Of the total respondents, 421 (99.76%) knew that rabies can be transmitted by dogs, 384 (91%) knew that rabies can be prevented by vaccination of dogs, 269 (63.74%) knew the symptoms of a rabid dog, 379 (89.81%) believed that its necessary to vaccinate all owned dogs but 227 (53.79%) had not vaccinated their dogs.

Conclusion: The level of knowledge and attitude about rabies disease and ant rabies vaccination was found to be good. However, the level of practice was poor, this indicated that there were practice gaps in the community which could be due to negligence, bad beliefs, poverty, unavailability and difficulties in accessing PEP especially in rural areas due to shortages of PEP in the health facilities.