Mon Valley vet helps charity take big bite out of rabies in Tanzania
Courtesy of Dr. Sarah Ripepi
Children in Tanzania brought dogs to Dr. Sarah Ripepi and other Mission Rabies volunteers for vaccination against the disease.
Courtesy of Dr. Sarah Ripepi
Carroll Township veterinarian Dr. Sarah Ripepi, right, and her sister, Kristin Rogentine-Lee, spent two weeks in Tanzania helping to vaccinate dogs against rabies.
Courtesy of Dr. Sarah Ripepi
Dogs run rampant in areas of Africa, where the bite of a rabid animal is often fatal to humans.
Dr. Sarah Ripepi spent two weeks in East Africa this winter. And, no, it wasn’t for an adventurous ascent of Kilimanjaro.
She was there to save lives – human and canine.
An associate veterinarian at Monongahela Animal Hospital, Ripepi was among an international group of 16 volunteers working for Mission Rabies, a charity devoted to eliminating dog bite-transmitted diseases. The group – made up of vets, vet technicians and others – lived in Tanzania for those weeks, vaccinating as many canines as they could against the viral disease that kills them and almost all humans who are infected. And dogs, the doctor added, run rampant in Africa.
“Over 8,000 dogs were vaccinated while we were there,” said Ripepi, who was accompanied by her sister, Kristin Rogentine-Lee, a clinical psychologist from North Carolina. “We also go to schools. There is so much of a lack of education about rabies there.”
The disease, she said, is a major problem in poor African nations, India and parts of Asia. Rabies, according to missionrabies.com, kills about 59,000 people a year worldwide, the majority being children under 15. (An estimated 100 children succumb to it each day.)
Although other animals, including cats, may contract the disease, more than “99% of human rabies cases are caused by an infected dog bite.” Many people in the aforementioned regions – children and adults – are unaware of the perils a rabid creature poses.
Ripepi, one of three vets and five Americans on the trip, cited a tragic example. One Sunday, following services, a pastor stepped outside the church to speak with the mission group and numerous children residing in the Meru District, where the volunteers were working. The cleric said rabies had killed his predecessor.
Vaccinations not only protect people, they make animals immune to the disease. Fear of rabies, especially in unenlightened regions, results in inhumane killings of millions of dogs each year, according to Mission Rabies. Ripepi said some villagers in Meru, where there is little money and fewer guns, stone dogs to death.
Mission Rabies’ efforts are paying off there, though. Ripepi said Meru hasn’t had a rabies-related death in two years. Residents appreciate the mission’s deeds and interact well with the volunteers. Children often gather dogs for vaccination.
Ripepi left for Tanzania Jan. 16 and returned Feb. 2 – appropriately, for a veterinarian, on Groundhog Day. She has worked at the Carroll Township animal hospital for 15 years and, in addition to her husband and four children, she has quite the menagerie at her Jefferson Hills home. Her family, according to the hospital’s website, includes two mixed-breed dogs; two cats; a bearded dragon; and a horse.
Mission Rabies has a goal of eliminating the disease by 2030, by “vaccinating just 70% of dogs.” It was founded in 2013 by Worldwide Veterinary Service, a United Kingdom-based charity group that assists animals.