Rabies, as one of the most serious bite-associated infectious diseases, kills 59,000 humans annually worldwide through the inoculation of rabid animal’s saliva into bite wounds or scratches. In the Philippines’ Davao Region, over 200 human rabies deaths are recorded annually and the majority of the cases are associated with dog bites. This paper aims to identify the risk factors affecting the severity of rabies exposure of dog bites in humans in Davao City. Probit and logistic regression models are used to determine the association of rabies exposure with age and gender of the dog bite victim, location of the biting incident, ownership of the biting dog, and bitten location in the victim’s body. A total of 1,658 dog bite cases collected from the Davao City Health Office (CHO) are used in this study. The age of the dog bite victim and the bitten location in the victim’s body have significant effects on the severity of rabies exposure in both models. Results showed that the probability of getting exposed severely to rabies gets lower as the dog bite victim gets older. This finding can be observed in the data where the percentage of severe rabies exposure is highest at 0–4 yr old and dog bite incidence is highest at 5–14 yr old, both decreases as the person gets older. Moreover, dog bite victims bitten on the arm and/or hand, leg and/or thigh, and foot are less likely to be severely exposed to rabies than those who are bitten in other parts of the body. These results suggest that the involved authorities should strengthen information, education, and communication (IEC) campaigns targeting parents with toddlers and in pre-schools and elementary schools. Furthermore, prompt medication – including first aid treatment – is advised when bitten by a dog.

Despite the control programs of the City Veterinarian’s Office (CVO), rabies is still geographically widespread across Davao City. Hence, a modified SEIV model incorporating different control strategies and adding population compartments focusing on reported rabies cases was formulated to understand dog rabies transmission dynamics. The model was fitted to the datasets of CVO from 2006–2020, such as the cumulative monthly positive rabies cases and the number of examined positive rabies samples in Talomo, Buhangin, and Poblacion districts. Results showed that the Talomo district had the highest rabies transmission rate but the lowest castration rate. On the other hand, the Poblacion district had the highest impounding rate and castration rate but the lowest birth and vaccination rate. Finally, the Buhangin district had the highest birth rate and vaccination rate but the lowest impounding rate and transmission rate. Sensitivity analysis (SA) was performed on over 10,000 samples of parameter space by the LHS method to obtain PRCC values. Results of the SA revealed that dog vaccination had a significantly strong influence among many interventions in mitigating rabies transmission – consistently in Talomo, Poblacion, and Buhangin districts. The results obtained in this study support the CVO’s ongoing mass canine rabies vaccination campaign in the city as a method of rabies control. Despite this, dog population control strategies (i.e. castration and impounding) must still be implemented in addition to intensifying vaccination strategy, as the birth rate also strongly contributes to increasing rabies transmission. Through the model and data fitting approaches, this study has provided information on the level of control measures implemented in three districts and can also be utilized to develop future rabies epidemiological models in Davao City and other locations.