An epidemiological study of dog bite cases in a rural area of Salem, Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Introduction:Rabies is a viral zoonosis. In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans. About 30% of the victims of dog bites are children under the age of 15. Objective: To assess the epidemiological pattern of dog bite cases, which formed the majority of cases attending anti-rabies clinic. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted at the Primary Health Centre,Poolavari, Salem, Tamil Nadu, India between Feb 1st-May 1 st 2018. It is a cross sectional study, where all dog bite cases attending injection OPD were studied. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted amongst dog bite patients in the Primary Health Centre at Poolavari, Salem. Results: Highest percentage of dog bite victims belonged to the age group of 5-25Years (33.7%). The bites were mostly by pet dogs (75.5%). 91.8% of the dogs were not vaccinated. Running, patting were the most common factors leading to dog bites (50.0%). 52% of the study population had awareness of first aid for dog bite. 88.8% population had awareness about Anti rabies vaccines for dog bites. Most of the victims took the treatment within ½ hr (30.6%). 81.6% of the victims took allopathy treatment. Conclusion: The study concludes that awareness of first aid for dog bites ,pet dog vaccination, awareness about Anti rabies vaccine for dog bites and completion of the treatment should be increased in the rural population.

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

“…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 study participants of the reporting studies were animal bite victims (9 studies), [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]40,41 dog bite victims (7 studies), [27][28][29][30][31]38,42 general population (5 studies), [32][33][34][35] clinically rabies suspected cases (1 study), 36 households of rabies cases (1 study) 37 and national representative survey of deaths (1 study). 4 The models included were based on decision tree and simulation method.…”

“…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.…”

“…Eight studies reported site of wounds: 55.03%-83.2% of the victims in these studies experienced bites on lower limb, gluteal and genital areas, while only 1%-13.4% of the total wounds in these studies are experienced on head, neck and face regions. 23,27,[29][30][31][32]34,38,42 Number of wounds: Only two studies reported number of wounds per encounter. 23,27 58% of the total children below 15 years of age experienced 2-4 wounds 27 while 80% of the total victims in a community based study reported only 1 wound.…”