Incidence of human rabies virus exposure in northwestern Amhara, Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundClinical Rabies is a widely distributed almost 100% fatal viral zoonotic disease. Most human rabies cases occur in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. It can be prevented by immunization, post exposure prophylaxis. Ethiopia is assumed to be among African countries with high incidence of human rabies exposure cases. However, there is limited documented data on the incidence of human rabies exposure in the study area in particular and in Ethiopia in general. Thus, this study aimed to determine the Incidence of Human Rabies Virus exposure in Northwestern Amhara, Ethiopia.MethodsRetrospective cross-sectional study was conducted during August and September, 2017. The study was conducted at Addis Alem Hospital, a district level hospital in Bahir Dar. Data on human rabies exposure cases registered from September 1, 2015 to August 31, 2017 were collected from anti-rabies post exposure prophylaxis registration log book. Data was collected using a structured data collection questionnaire developed for this purpose. Descriptive statistics was used to describe relevant variables.The resultsA total of 924 human rabies exposure cases was recorded. The overall human rabies incidence per 100, 000 population was 6.5 in 2015 and 7.5 in 2016. Males (55.2%, 510/924) and children of age less than fifteen (46.3%, 428/924) were most affected groups. The majority of human rabies exposure cases (71.9%, 664/924) were from rural settings. Dogs were the principal sources of exposure (96.3%) followed by cat (1.5%) and donkey (1.3%). High incidence rate of rabies exposure was reported during spring (360, 39%) and summer (244, 26.4%) seasons. There was significant difference between rural and urban exposure cases (p = 0.001) in respect to the time of arrival to the hospital.ConclusionTaking these into account, a significant proportion of the population was exposed to rabies virus during the study years. There was high human rabies exposure rate in children and in the rural community.This shows the need for organizing preventive and control strategies and to build community awareness.

Animal Contact and Rabies Prophylaxis Experience: Evaluation of 625 Pediatric Cases

“…Yizengaw et al have reported that hospital admissions were made most frequently in spring and summer time. The authors have claimed that this situation was due to the breeding season of dogs (15). In our study, following summer (June, July) with the highest rate of admissions, spring was found the second highest.…”

Surveillance of Animal Rabies in Burkina Faso: A Retrospective Laboratory Data from 2008 to 2012

“…It causes around 59,000 human deaths worldwide each year with 36.4% located in Africa and 8.6 billion USD economic losses annually (Hampson et al 2015). Many studies have reported that children less than 15 years old are more exposed to rabies and many human rabies cases have been reported in children (Adomako et al 2018;Masiira et al 2018;Yizengaw et al 2018). All mammals including wild animals are susceptible and can transmit the rabies virus, but the primary reservoir is carnivorous mammals (Singh et al 2017).…”

Rabies: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices in and Around South Gondar, North West Ethiopia

“…A national surveillance conducted in Ethiopia from 2007 to 2012 showed that 15,178 exposure cases (3.4/100,000) and 272 fatal cases with 1.5 incidence rates in every 100,000 people living in the Amhara region [15]. More specifically, in the study area, an incidence rate of 7.5 in every 100,000 people was reported in 2016 by [17]. Annual rabies-associated livestock losses in the world are estimated at >$50 million (USD), making rabies important to both human and animal health [12,18].…”