Difficulties in estimating the human burden of canine rabies

Taylor, Louise H.; Hampson, Katie; Fahrion, Anna S.; Abela-Ridder, Bernadette; Nel, Louis Hendrik

doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2015.12.007

Cited by 99 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…9,18 IBCM programmes, such as the one developed in Haiti, can provide professional, community-based counselling for bite victims, which we found could significantly improve the number of people starting and completing vaccination while reducing the unnecessary use of vaccine for non-rabies exposures. IBCM programmes are not a substitution for mass vaccination of dogs, but should provide a complementary preventive measure against human rabies deaths.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Many countries do not have qualified medical professionals to implement these recommendations, the laboratory capacity to make timely diagnoses, or the veterinary workforce to reliably assess animals suspected of having rabies. 9 These issues might lead to a high demand for and overadministration of rabies vaccines, resulting in vaccine shortages. Improved use of human rabies vaccines and increased bite surveillance have been achieved through the development of integrated bite case management (IBCM) programmes that link the public health and veterinary sectors and enable collaboration in the investigation of suspected rabies exposures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of counselling on health-care-seeking behaviours and rabies vaccination adherence after dog bites in Haiti, 2014–15: a retrospective follow-up survey

Etheart

Kligerman

Augustin

et al. 2017

The Lancet Global Health

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Summary Background Haiti has an integrated bite case management (IBCM) programme to counsel animal-bite victims on the risk of rabies and appropriate treatment, as well as the Haiti Animal Rabies Surveillance Program (HARSP) to examine the animals. We assessed the usefulness of the IBCM programme to promote best practices for rabies prophylaxis after exposure in a low-income rabies-endemic setting. Methods We did a retrospective follow-up survey of randomly selected bite victims who were counselled by Haiti's IBCM programme between May 15, 2014, and Sept 15, 2015. We classified participants by HARSP decisions of confirmed, probable, suspected, or non-rabies exposures. We compared health-care outcomes in people who sought medical care before IBCM counselling with those in people who sought care after counselling. We used decision trees to estimate the probability of actions taken in the health-care system, and thereby human deaths. Findings During the study period, 1478 dog bites were reported to HARSP for assessment. 37 (3%) were confirmed exposures, 76 (5%) probable exposures, 189 (13%) suspected exposures, and 1176 (80%) non-rabies exposures. 115 of these cases were followed up in the survey. IBCM counselling was associated with a 1.2 times increase in frequency of bite victims seeking medical care and of 2.4 times increase in vaccination uptake. We estimated that there would be four human rabies deaths among the 1478 people assessed by IBCM during the survey period, and 11 in the absence of this programme, which would equate to a 65% decrease in rabies deaths. Among three people dead at the time of the follow-up survey, one was deemed to be due to rabies after a probable rabies exposure. Interpretation Adherence to medical providers' recommendations might be improved through counselling provided by IBCM programmes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of counselling on health-care-seeking behaviours and rabies vaccination adherence after dog bites in Haiti, 2014–15: a retrospective follow-up survey

Etheart

Kligerman

Augustin

et al. 2017

The Lancet Global Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In many countries, appropriate decisions regarding control efforts cannot be made because passive surveillance of canine rabies has resulted in significant underreporting (15). Reasons identified for underreporting of dog rabies include lack of awareness and motivation and lack of clear protocol for disease reporting by the public, insufficient infrastructure and staff for dog rabies diagnosis, and lack of monitoring of the dog rabies reporting system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative Study of Stakeholder Perceptions Related to Requirements for Elimination of Dog Rabies in Sri Lanka by 2025

Janrabelge

Srikitjakarn

Pfeiffer

et al. 2019

OSJ

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Rabies has been eliminated in some Asian countries including Japan, Singapore, Maldives, and Hong Kong. Sri Lanka is close to joining that group: human rabies cases declined from 288 in 1975 to 23 in 2017, due largely to intradermal post-exposure prophylaxis. The weakest link in rabies elimination in Sri Lanka is inconsistent prevention at the source due in part to insufficient institutional capacity to achieve the goal of 70% dog vaccination coverage.Obstacles to rabies control identified through focus groups and in-depth interviews with stakeholders, government officials, non-government agents, and community residents include insufficient motivation for disease reporting and development of a clear protocol for disease reporting by the public, lack of awareness in some areas of the importance of disease reporting exacerbated by logistical issues, uneven vaccination coverage due to insufficient communication regarding government vaccination campaigns, and incomplete implementation of government policies. Other issues included a need for more responsible dog ownership and better understanding of rabies disease risks amongst dog owners. Dog-associated factors included the need for improved understanding of drivers of variation in dog population size, for lower sterilization cost to owners, and for monitoring of post-surgical complications.An integrated national dog rabies monitoring and reporting system based on effective partnerships among relevant institutions plus additional decentralized dog rabies diagnosis laboratories plus additional local veterinary and medical government staff are needed.

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“…Although the surveillance of rabies in humans has not been well carried out in Nigeria, the first documented rabies case in Zamfara State was detected in a sheep that had been bitten by an aggressive stray dog (Ahmad et al, 2017). Almost all suspected human rabies deaths are diagnosed on clinical grounds across most of Africa, rarely laboratory confirmed due to the difficulties of collecting the required post-mortem samples (Suraweera et al, 2012;Banyard et al, 2013;Taylor et al, 2017). Mortality in humans due to rabies infection are recorded low in Nigeria because of cultural beliefs, disease under-reporting, inadequate rabies diagnostic facilities, poor knowledge on the mode of transmission and prevention of the disease (Otolorin et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%