Oral Vaccination of Dogs in India as a Strategy for Elimination of Rabies: Scope of Implementation.

India contributes one-third of the global burden of rabies. In 2021, the National Action Plan for Rabies Elimination (NAPRE) was introduced to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies. The major challenges in the path of eliminating dog-mediated rabies are toward achieving the high level of dog vaccination coverage and its sustenance, as well as rigorous tracking of dogs and continuous outreach activities. Oral vaccination of dogs (OVD) is a measure that has been implemented in several countries. For a deeper understanding of the OVD strategy, a systematic search was conducted and free full-text articles related to feasibility of OVD adoption and field trials published in the past ten years were included in the present review. Based on evidence, OVD can be implemented in India along with existing government initiatives as a pilot project in selected hotspots and subsequently expanded to improve vaccination coverage.