Chetumal Launches Free Rabies Vaccination Campaign for Dogs and Cats

Chetumal, Quintana Roo — Authorities in the municipality of Othon P. Blanco are urging residents to protect their pets against rabies through a free vaccination campaign for dogs and cats.

The municipal health department announced that the campaign will run over the next four weekends at the Canine and Feline Care Center (CAC), located on Cerrada Flor de Pascua, off Codorniz Street in the Colonia Del Sol neighborhood.

Vaccinations are available Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The service is not offered on weekdays.

According to the Health Secretariat, rabies symptoms in dogs include drastic behavioral changes such as unusual aggression or extreme shyness, excessive drooling with foam, paralysis, difficulty swallowing, stumbling, and isolation. The disease is fatal and progresses rapidly after clinical signs appear, often moving through a furious phase followed by a paralytic phase.

In cats, symptoms include sudden behavioral changes like aggression or extreme fear, drooling, unusual vocalizations, progressive paralysis, and seizures. The disease advances through stages, from irritability to paralysis, and ultimately coma and death within days.

Rabies vaccines typically protect pets for one to three years, depending on the vaccine used, but health authorities recommend annual boosters.

Infected pets can transmit rabies to humans primarily through bites, scratches, or contact of saliva with open wounds or mucous membranes such as the eyes, nose, and mouth.

To keep human rabies cases transmitted by dogs and cats eradicated, pets should receive their first rabies dose at one month of age, a booster at three months, and annual vaccinations thereafter.