Rabies is a totally preventable disease that claims the lives of 100 children every day and more than 60,000 people globally every year, mostly in the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the world.  Fatalities from rabies most often occur after a bite from an infected dog and fear of this awful disease results in hundreds of thousands of healthy dogs being inhumanely destroyed every year.  Mission Rabies is changing this!

In September 2013, I swapped vaccinating the patients of Wendover Heights Veterinary Centre for the street dogs of India. I joined the Mission Rabies team and set out to vaccinate 50,000 dogs against rabies in India in 4 weeks.  I spent two weeks at the checkpoints in Chennai and Kolkata.  The project was a huge success, with a massive 61,143 dogs being vaccinated against rabies in 30 days. Mission Rabies 2013 was just the start of a sustainable long-term project in India to vaccinate and neuter dogs, to train local vets to continue rabies and population control and develop a National Rabies Network for the supply of high quality rabies vaccine. The Mission Rabies all-terrain mobile veterinary hospital continues to travel across India training local vets to carry on this amazing work, all to save the lives of people and dogs and prevent the spread of this terrible disease.

I returned to India in September 2014 for the second phase of the project - the Mission Rabies Mega Drive in Goa.  The aim was to vaccinate and surgically neuter 70% of the canine population (20,000 dogs), to start Goa on the path to becoming the first state in India to achieve canine rabies free status - and we did it!  This was an even bigger challenge than the previous year, but another amazing experience with the team.

This year sees Mission Rabies take on it's next big challenge and launch in Africa. Blantyre city in Malawi has the highest reported rate of paediatric rabies in Africa. I am very excited to be joining the team again for 3 weeks in May, to help vaccinate more than 50,000 dogs in 1 month to help reduce this terrible statistic and save lives.  Along side the vaccination program, an education project is being run to teach children about the dangers of rabies, what to do if they get bitten by a dog and about canine welfare.

So far, Mission Rabies has vaccinated 117,858 dogs against rabies, surgically neutered 26,133 dogs, trained 53 Indian vets in humane surgical neutering and taught more than 183,987 children about rabies and canine welfare.  To follow the progress of the project please visit www.missionrabies.com.

Please help me to help the people and dogs of India and Africa! £25 will vaccinate 100 dogs against rabies and save lives.  Thank you for supporting me!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.