The All-Terrain Clinic: Ending rabies through mass vaccination and sterilisation

At Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) we are dedicated to creating safe, stable and healthy dog populations with animal welfare at the forefront. The overpopulation and uncontrolled breeding of free-roaming dogs leads to overcrowding, which results in competition for resources, the spread of deadly diseases, like rabies, conflicts, and issues within communities. Sterilisation improves animal welfare by controlling the population, whilst canine rabies vaccinations ensure a healthy dog population by stopping the spread of rabies amongst dogs. This also ensures the protection of communities they live in by stopping rabies at the source. Vaccinations and sterilisations create a safe and stable dog population, which is the best way to reduce canine and human rabies deaths.  

The All-Terrain Clinic (ATC) highlights our mass vaccination and sterilisation approach, as this self-sufficient mobile veterinary hospital provides these vital services, as well as surgical training courses for veterinary professionals, to communities all around India. The truck was designed and built in the UK in 2012, and spent 33 days travelling over 11,000km to reach Mumbai and begin its first mission, to support with eliminating of rabies in Goa. Since then, it has travelled thousands of miles with the team on board training thousands of vets and vaccinating and sterilising dogs across India. As the ATC is completely mobile and fully equipped, it allows us to reach remote, resource-limited communities to provide essential veterinary care and training. The clinic runs outreach programmes, training courses, mobile clinics, and rabies emergency response. 

Throughout 2024, our team have been administering rabies vaccinations, delivering training courses, and raising awareness of sterilisation and rabies across the state of Maharashtra.

The All-Terrain Clinic

Rabies Vaccinations

Globally, rabies still claims the lives of approximately 59,000 people each year, with a staggering 20,000 of these fatalities occurring in India. Dogs serve as a reservoir for the disease and are the main source of transmission to humans. Therefore, to stop the spread of rabies we need to stop dogs catching it in the first place, which is why we mass vaccinate dogs. The ATC team administers rabies vaccinations to both owned and free-roaming dogs in communities with limited access to veterinary care. This ensures the protection of both the canine population, and the communities they live amongst. With every outreach sterilisation campaign or training course the ATC completes, all the patients are vaccinated against rabies. 

The ATC has supported WVS outreach campaigns, like the All Dogs Matter Camp, which was a humane sterilisation and vaccination drive delivered in partnership with WVS and Give Goa Dogs at the end of 2023. The core objective of this outreach was to build a brighter future for dogs, by increasing spay and neuter coverage, and helping to improve dog and human relations. Using the ATC, a static point vaccination clinic was set up at the camp, allowing all dogs to receive a free rabies vaccination during their visit. Over 2,900 animals received life-saving vaccinations against this deadly disease.  

Training Courses

The ATC is a mobile veterinary hospital with all the equipment needed for our team to run Animal Birth Control training courses. Our team regularly run two-week training courses to complete sterilisation surgeries and to train local vets to improve the standard of care. Through lectures, demonstrations and hands-on learning, participants gain skills and confidence in surgery and support with spay and neutering dogs. It provides vets and vet students with the space to gain skills in spaying and neutering, build surgical confidence, and learn best practice in animal welfare, especially in resource-limited settings, under the expertise of our team. 

As the ATC is a fully mobile clinic, it means our teams can go to different areas to deliver training courses, making training more accessible to veterinary professionals across India. These training courses are regularly run in collaboration with other NGO’s and charities around India, along with the WVS Taskforce. By providing local vets with essential skills to humanely manage animal populations within their communities, we can reduce overpopulation and eliminate all the suffering within it, like rabies. The skills they gain improves the health and wellbeing of animals within these communities, and subsequently, protects public health. 

Our Mission Rabies team are crucial in ensuring training courses can happen, as they ensure that there are patients to sterilise. Our skilled team of animal handlers safely and humanely captures both male and female dogs from surrounding villages. 

Awareness Raising

Alongside vaccination and sterilisation campaigns, the ATC allows us to travel across India championing humane population control, animal welfare and rabies control. The team can engage with communities to spread the message of the importance of getting animals sterilised, along with important information about rabies and how to stay safe around dogs. Education and community engagement are integral in our mission to end rabies. India has suffered the consequences of rabies circulating in the free roaming dog population, with human deaths occurring when people did not get post-exposure treatment following a bite from a rabid dog. Through reaching remote communities with the ATC, our team can spread information on how rabies transmits, dog behaviour, and the steps to take if bitten by a dog. If the risks of rabies are widely understood and appropriate dog bite treatment is known – rabies is 100% preventable. 

Prior to dog catching activities for training courses, our teams engage with local communities to inform them of the programme’s objectives and benefits of animal birth control.  

Emergency Response

In August a child was severely injured from a dog attack in Bajarswangi, Chatrapati Sambhjinagar district. The ATC team swiftly responded by launching an emergency intervention programme to address immediate risks and reinforce rabies prevention in the area. During this one-day programme, our team vaccinated 62 dogs and cats against rabies and completed an awareness campaign aimed at educating villagers on rabies prevention and responsible pet owners. We also ensured that the child received the life-saving post-exposure vaccinations they needed. 

Following on from this response, an Animal Birth Control camp was organised in the area where 118 free roaming dogs were sterilised and vaccinated. The ATC team used the catch, neuter, vaccinate, release methods. The dogs were humanely captured, sterilisation performed, anti-rabies vaccinations administered and released back into their communities. These programmes help to control the free-roaming dog population and prevent the spread of rabies amongst dogs and to humans.  

The ATC programme is delivered thanks to generous support of donors including Marchig Animal Welfare Trust and IDEXX Foundation. 

Get involved in our mission

Our supporters ensure that we can continue to fight for a rabies free world. Sign up to our newsletters to hear about our work and upcoming opportunities, fundraise to raise awareness and vital funds for our life-saving mission, or donate to protect both dogs and humans from this deadly disease. 

Register your interest in our upcoming volunteering opportunities- volunteer applications for Mumbai 2025 will be opening soon!