One Health responses to prevent the occurrence of rabies due to attacks by a rabid stray dog

Abstract

Background:The number of human rabies cases caused by pet dogs in Guangzhou has been decreasing after years of comprehensive interventions. Consequently, attacks by stray dogs become a major issue in rabies control.Objectives: To share our experience of successfully dealing with rabies to provide some inspiration for prevention and control in countries and regions affected by it.Methods: A multidisciplinary One Health response was initiated to control this outbreak. Rabies virus was detected by PCR in the brain tissue of the associated stray dog.The sequences were aligned with reference sequences downloaded from GenBank using ClustalX. The maximum likelihood method implemented in MEGA 5.0 software package was used in a phylogenetic analysis of the aligned sequences.Results: Twelve patients with exposure to the stray dog were identified in the field investigation. Rabies vaccines and immunoglobulin were administered to all patients within 48 h. After 1 year of follow-up, no exposed patients showed symptoms. Maximum likelihood analysis of the nucleotide sequences obtained from the PCR products indicated that the rabies virus in the dog was closely related to isolates from neighbouring provinces of Guangdong as well as those from surrounding countries of China.Conclusions: Multidisciplinary One Health intervention is effective not only in the control of rabies but also in rapid emergency responses to attacks by rabid stray dogs. K E Y W O R D Shealth policy, infectious diseases, One Health, public health, rabies BACKGROUNDRabies is caused by infection from a lyssavirus, which is a threat to humans and animals (Depani et al., 2012). All mammals are susceptible to rabies virus and may become a source of human infection.

Tracking lethal threat: In-depth review of rabies

“…All mammals are capable of contracting rabies, but only a small subset of these, known as rabies-transmitting animals, are capable of actually spreading the disease ( Wei et al , 2023 ). The type of animal that transmits rabies varies depending on various geographical locations, for example, the animal that transmits rabies in North America is the fox, skunk, raccoon, and insect-eating bats; in South America, those are vampire dogs and bats; in Europe, they are foxes and bats; in Africa, they are dogs, mongooses, and antelopes; in the Middle East, they are wolves and dogs; and in Asia, they are dogs ( Sararat et al , 2022 ).…”