Today marks World Rabies Day, a chance for us to highlight the importance of our mass rabies vaccination programme in Kabul, Afghanistan, implemented by Mayhew International.

In a previous update, we told you about the team of dog catchers, who were previously a part of the culling of street dogs before our landmark agreement was signed by the Kabul City authorities (read more here) .

The Kabul Municipality team of dog catchers received three weeks of intensive training from HSI India in humane dog handling and restraint techniques. They then were shown by HOPE & Animal Trust in Ranchi, India, how to work on the streets and record data using the mobile app by World Veterinary Service (WVS). The app documents and tracks the location of the dogs on the street and how many have been vaccinated.

Most of the phones that our team currently have to use the app on are losing functionality or are not compatible with the latest WVS software. This means that we urgently need more second-hand Samsung Android phones to continue the vital work on our rabies mission, to achieve our target of vaccinating up to 15,000 dogs in Kabul.

The target is based on the statistics from the first ever Dog Population Survey, carried out by Dr. Mohammadzai DVM in Kabul in 2015. This first year of the vaccination programme will also include a further population survey to ensure we are on track, and for this, we need to use the app.

Your old phone could help us fight rabies

If you have an Android Samsung phone that you no longer need or want, please consider donating it to our project in Afghanistan.

You can easily do so by dropping it off at our Animal Home in Kensal Green or by sending it to us in the post. Our address is: Mayhew, Trenmar Gardens, Kensal Green, London, NW10 6BJ

If you don’t have a spare phone, please take a look at some other items we urgently need in Afghanistan that you can donate directly to us here via Amazon Wishlist.

Thank you.

Rabies Vacc Programme – Curated tweets by themayhew