New Policies for the Animal Rabies Lay Vaccinator Program Background

Vaccinating pets against rabies is a long-standing public health intervention that decreases human exposure to rabies virus by preventing pets from contracting rabies from wildlife reservoirs and subsequently transmitting the virus to humans. In the 1970s, the Section of Epidemiology (SOE) created the Lay Vaccinator (LV) program, which certifies qualified lay persons to administer rabies vaccine to dogs and cats.1 The LV program was ultimately designed to reduce the risk of rabies exposure to Alaskans by increasing access to animal rabies vaccination services. In most of northern and western Alaska, rabies is enzootic – always present in animals at a low level – among fox populations. Prior to the LV program, there was no reliable means for obtaining animal rabies vaccinations in enzootic areas. Therefore, the LV program served as a public health intervention to help prevent human exposures in areas where the risk of exposure to rabies virus is relatively high. Conversely, in many non-enzootic areas of Alaska, the risk of exposure to rabies virus is low, and now professional veterinary and animal control services are often available for vaccinating dogs and cats. In the past year, a thorough examination of the public health purpose and effectiveness of the LV program coupled with the high number of dogs that contracted rabies in enzootic areas, prompted SOE to revise the governing policies for the LV program. The most substantial revision improves program efficiency by focusing limited resources on rabies enzootic areas, which have historically had limited or no access to rabies vaccination services. The 2007 policies are outlined below