The action plan recommends a multi-pronged approach, basically made up of legislation and law enforcement, birth control via sterilization, human and animal vaccinations, dog population management and awareness on responsible pet ownership. This also includes environmental management, applied concurrently in order to tackle the problem of rabies humanely and successfully. The vision of the action plan is the eradication of rabies from Sri Lanka through humane methods by the year 2010, while its objectives are (A) prevention of human rabies through provision of post- exposure treatment to all people with animal bites and (B) prevention of dog rabies through appropriate humane measures of dog population control (primarily via sterilization) and vaccination.

In Sri Lanka, although the existing rabies control programme has been in place for more than 40 years helping to keep the situation under control, every year around 100 to 150 human deaths from rabies occur. Since rabies is preventable, there is an agreement that any human deaths caused through it are unacceptable.

It is also officially estimated that annually more than 100,000 stray dogs are killed in Sri Lanka, and there is an agreement that this too is unacceptable. The direct cost incurred by the government in connection with the human and dog vaccination programme and dog rabies control programme is approximately 200 million rupees per year. The action plan gives high priority to dog vaccination coverage {at least 80%) and dog population control via neutering and spaying (island wide). This will in turn reduce the long-term costs in rabies control, primarily the enormous cost of providing post exposure human rabies vaccinations (which is Rs.180 million per year), and make it a cost-effective programme and will eventually lead to a rabies-free country