The RACE Program
RACE is a 5-year program involving interdisciplinary, multi-sector, and international teams. The different tasks have been grouped into work packages that are listed below.
Work Package 1:
Coordination
â–ª This program involves co-construction between all partners at the national and international level, including ministries of health, research scientists, and community stakeholders.
â–ª Co-construction ensures that concrete and feasible policies are established and scientific findings are translated to communities in a coherent unifying framework.
Work Package 2:
Working relationships, stakeholder and community participation
â–ª Effective coordination starts with strong working relationships with all stakeholders, including the community.
â–ª For this, the program is facilitating quarter-annual, cross-scale stakeholder meetings and community awarness campaigns to promote trustworthy sustainable relationships.
Work Package 3:
Surveillance
â–ª Rabies, like many neglected tropical diseases, is underreported, which challenges the potential to control this zoonotic disease. Thus, the first step is to augment rabies surveillance by increasing the role of community health and animal health workers and decentralizing diagnostic capacity.
â–ª Once the surveillance system has been augmented, the sensitivity of the surveillance system will be assessed.
â–ª Samples collected are being used to obtain a fine-scale understanding of the dynamics and eco-epidemiological drivers of rabies maintenance and diffusion in selected pilot areas and more largely in Cameroon.
Work Package 4:
Dog vaccination
â–ª The first step for effective dog vaccination is to estimate dog population size. Gold-standard approaches are being used to estimate dog population sizes in the pilot regions
â–ª Small-scale vaccination campaigns are being done to assess feasibility and acceptability of such campaigns so that high coverage dog vaccination can be ensured for the future.
Work Package 5:
Human exposure management and PEP
â–ª Operationalize the anti-rabies centers in the pilot regions so that patients can effectively be treated and can follow the full course of treatment
â–ª Reinforce information flow and data transfer to-and-from local to national health authorities using technological advances.