Tactics and Economics of Wildlife Oral Rabies Vaccination, Canada and the United States

Progressive elimination of rabies in wildlife has been a general strategy in Canada and the United States; common campaign tactics are trap–vaccinate–release (TVR), point infection control (PIC), and oral rabies vaccination (ORV). TVR and PIC are labor intensive and the most expensive tactics per unit area (≈$616/km(2) [in 2008 Can$, converted from the reported $450/km(2) in 1991 Can$] and ≈$612/km(2) [$500/km(2) in 1999 Can$], respectively), but these tactics have proven crucial to elimination of raccoon rabies in Canada and to maintenance of ORV zones for preventing the spread of raccoon rabies in the United States. Economic assessments have shown that during rabies epizootics, costs of human postexposure prophylaxis, pet vaccination, public health, and animal control spike. Modeling studies, involving diverse assumptions, have shown that ORV programs can be cost-efficient and yield benefit:cost ratios >1.0.