A study of dog bites among children in the rural area of Goa, India

Abstract

Objective: 1. To study the prevalence of dog bites in children; 2. To study knowledge and practices followed regarding prevention and control of rabies among caretakers. Materials and Methods: Study Design: Cross sectional study; Study Participants: Children below 16 years of age; Study Instrument: A predesigned questionnaire was used to ask questions to parents or caretakers of children. Ethical Considerations: Ethical approval was obtained from Institutional Ethics Committee. Statistical Analysis: Data was entered in excel and analysed using SPSS version 22. Frequencies, X 2 tests and odds ratios were calculated. Results: The incidence of dog bites in children was 3.36 %. Most of the bites were in children between 6 -10 years (2.4%) and among males (2.1%). Almost 55.6 % of the bites were unprovoked. Most common site was lower limbs (66.7%). 66.6% of the victims received anti rabies vaccine (ARV). Out of those who received ARV, only 66.7% received all doses completely. Knowledge of rabies and ARV was present in 83% and 74% of the parents respectively. Conclusion: Most of the bites happen in and around the house, which can be easily prevented. Even though free health services are so easily accessible, services are not availed. Health education regarding prevention of dog bites, correct methods of local bite management and compliance of ARV treatment is needed.

Burden of illness of dog-mediated rabies in India: A systematic review

“…29,31,34,42 Another study reported a dog bite incidence of 1.03%, 8.66% and 1.7% in the age groups of 0-5, 6-10 and 11-16 years respectively in rural parts of Goa in 2018. 39 Sex: The males in the reported studies have disproportionately experienced more dog bites than females. The studies reported the dog bites in males in a range of 57.1%-80.2%.…”

“…Only one modeling study reported all the three outcomes: epidemiological, economic and humanistic. 1 Out of 35 included studies, 23 were hospital (or clinic) based, [20][21][22][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]38,41,42,[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] 9 were community (or household) based 4,23,[32][33][34][35]37,39,40 and 2 were modeling studies at country level 1,43 and was laboratory-based study. 36…”

“…The cohort studies included for epidemiological outcomes failed to describe any efforts to address potential sources of bias, statistical methods, other analyses undertaken and their external validity. [40][41][42] The criteria that were not reported in cross-sectional studies included for epidemiological outcomes were bias (95.2%), 4,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] other analyses (76.2%), [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]32,[35][36][37][38] generalisability (71.4%), [20][21][22][23][24][26][27][28][30][31]…”

“…The studies reported the dog bites in males in a range of 57.1%-80.2%. 23,[27][28][29][30][31][32]34,38,39,42 The males have reported dog bites 1.6-4 times than females in all age groups.…”

“…Type of biting dog: Five of the eight studies reported stray dog as the biting animal in 97.2%, 96.48%, 92.8%, 80.99% and 61.1% of the total cases in the respective studies. 21,24,25,28,39 The prospective cohort study from Shimla reported 42.9% of the total bites by stray dogs; of which 270 bites by potentially rabid dogs and 26 by laboratory-confirmed rabid dogs and; the remaining 57.1% bites were by the pet dogs; of which 26% of the pet dogs were unimmunized stray dogs kept as pets. 41 The modeling study published in 2015 reported the probability of the biting dog to be rabid is as high as 0.545.…”