How Goa managed to tame rabies: Inside state's drive that vaccinated 63,000 dogs in 30 days
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The streak was broken by one case in 2023, but there were no fatalities in 2024 and none so far this year. 'Even if a single stray dog misses vaccination and sterilisation, it can lead to a litter of eight or nine puppies that are at risk,' said Nilkanth Harlankar, the state's minister for animal husbandry and veterinary services.
The story began in 2014 when the threat of rabies in Goa was all too real: 17 people succumbed to the virus that year.
There was no reliable data on the dog population — stray or pet — nor any formal record of dog mortality. Then came Mission Rabies, a fledgling NGO with a pilot surveillance project that uncovered a grim truth: of the 45 suspected animal cases they investigated, 39 tested positive for rabies.
Instead of being daunted, they doubled down, aiming to vaccinate 50,000 dogs in just 30 days. By the end of the month, over 500 vets from 16 different countries joined forces with local teams and managed to exceed the target: they vaccinated 63,000 dogs.
This momentum translated into policy the very next year. In 2015, the thenCM Manohar Parrikar signed an MoU with Mission Rabies, launching a full-fledged vaccination and sterilisation drive across the state. Following this, Goa had 24-hour rabies surveillance, an emergency hotline, rapid response teams, and field volunteers fanning out to every taluka, vaccinating and sterilising dogs, and assisting bite victims.
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From Sept 2017, human rabies cases in Goa virtually disappeared. But the Covid-19 lockdown brought fresh challenges. As tourism halted and markets closed, hungry stray dogs from neighbouring states wandered into Goa. Mission Rabies suspects this migration led to a spike in animal cases in border talukas.
Goa's borders with Maharashtra and Karnataka remain points of vulnerability, with rabies cases still detected in talukas like Bicholim, Pernem, Sattari, and Canacona. 'We are vaccinating stray dogs in border talukas on a warfooting,' said Harlankar. In June 2021, it was made mandatory for visitors bringing pets into Goa to declare their animals and share vaccination records via the anti-rabies hotline to prevent cross-border transmission.
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