Sylvatic rabies epidemic in Italy: implementation of a data management system to assess the level of application of preventive dog vaccination.

After 20 years of absence, rabies re-emerged in wild animals in north-eastern Italy in October 2008. Besides measures undertaken to fight the spread of infection in wildlife, vaccination against rabies was made compulsory for dogs living in the risk area. In the last 15 years, the veterinary authorities have focused on implementing computerized data collection systems in animal health, to serve as working tools for epidemiological surveillance activities and emergencies management. The prerequisite for implementing any data collection system is knowledge of the animal population. This also applies to the Canine Registry Data Bank, in which data on dogs and their movements, together with personal data on each owner and keeper, have been stored since 2003. The management information system has been updated and specific functions have been integrated in order to support the activity of both the veterinary services and the veterinary practitioners involved in the dog vaccination program. Vaccination became voluntary in February 2013. This paper describes implementation of the software and organization of data gathering, highlighting the benefits of computerized data compared to previously used paper-based data collection systems. The new functions, designed to centralize collection of uniform, updated vaccination data, have led to more efficient organization and better control of the vaccination plan. Automated information processing allowed vaccination operations to be supervised, incurred costs to be calculated, and vaccination coverage of the dog population to be monitored during the 3 years of compulsory vaccination.