Rabies in Costa Rica: Documentation of the Surveillance Program and the Endemic Situation from 1985 to 2014

Abstract

This is the first comprehensive epidemiological analysis of rabies in Costa Rica. We characterized the occurrence of the disease and demonstrated its endemic nature in this country. In Costa Rica, as in other countries in Latin America, hematophagous vampire bats are the primary wildlife vectors transmitting the rabies virus to cattle herds. Between 1985 and 2014, a total of 78 outbreaks of bovine rabies was reported in Costa Rica, with documented cases of 723 dead cattle. Of cattle outbreaks, 82% occurred between 0 and 500 meters above sea level, and seasonality could be demonstrated on the Pacific side of the country, with significantly more outbreaks occurring during the wet season. A total of 1588 animal samples, or an average of 55 samples per year, was received by the veterinary authority (SENASA) for rabies diagnostic testing at this time. Of all samples tested, 9% (143/1588) were positive. Of these, 85.6% (125/1588) were from cattle; four dogs (0.3% [4/1588]) were diagnosed with rabies in this 30-year period. Simultaneously, an extremely low number (n = 3) of autochthonous rabies cases were reported among human patients, all of which were fatal. However, given the virus' zoonotic characteristics and predominantly fatal outcome among both cattle and humans, it is extremely important for healthcare practitioners and veterinarians to be aware of the importance of adequate wound hygiene and postexpositional rabies prophylaxis when dealing with both wild and domestic animal bites.

Assessing changing weather and the El Niño Southern Oscillation impacts on cattle rabies outbreaks and mortality in Costa Rica (1985–2016)

“…Their database includes the data of all registered outbreaks, the number and species of dead animals attributed to rabies, and the georeferenced location of the outbreak. Meanwhile, the geolocation of outbreaks was variable, as in some instances it was based on the centroid of the county where the outbreak happened, while in other instances it was based on the coordinates of the cattle ranch itself, measured with a Global Positioning System (GPS) [ 8 ].…”

“…Nowadays, due to an elimination programme for dog transmitted human rabies initiated in 1983 [ 6 , 7 ], the main mode of zoonotic rabies transmission in the New World is via bites from infected common vampire bats to other mammal species, including humans and livestock [ 3 ]. This was also the case in Costa Rica, where dog rabies has not been a problem for decades [ 8 ].…”

“…The epidemiology of numerous cattle rabies outbreaks has been studied across Latin America [ 4 , 7 , 9 ], in places so far apart like northeastern Mexico [ 19 ] and southern Brazil [ 20 ]. In Costa Rica, between 1985 and 2014, over 70 cattle rabies outbreaks were reported, including 723 cattle deaths, placing a considerable burden on the local livestock industry [ 8 ]. All of these outbreaks have been linked by the unequivocal presence of common vampire bats, and this might be enhanced by a couple of factors.…”

“…This study showed an increased human rabies incidence during the cold ENSO phase (La Niña in 2004) when compared to the hot ENSO phase (El Niño in 2002) [ 35 ], a suggestive observation despite data limitations for statistical inferences. Thus, provided that global climate change, here defined as the increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events driven by phenomena like ENSO, is known to affect livestock infectious diseases [ 36 ], such as Rift Valley Fever, and many other infectious diseases [ 37 , 38 ] and the existence of detailed records about cattle rabies outbreaks in Costa Rica [ 8 ] creates an ideal scenario to test the hypothesis that ENSO phases might have differential impacts on the occurrence and size of cattle rabies outbreaks. Here, it is studied if the frequency of rabies outbreaks and cattle mortality per outbreak are associated with ENSO driven changes in weather patterns in Costa Rica between 1985 and 2016.…”

The ecology of chronic wasting disease in wildlife

“…Infectious diseases are not distributed randomly across landscapes (Peterson, 2014;Escobar & Craft, 2016). Models accounting for landscape or climate configuration to quantify environmental conditions where spread of diseases occurs are used to understand distributional disequilibrium in the spread of diseases (Benavides, Valderrama & Streicker, 2016;Hutter et al, 2016;Piaggio et al, 2017), like CWD, that are undergoing range expansions. Interestingly, the available studies conducted at landscape levels also suggest that CWD does not occur randomly across taxonomic, temporal, geographic, and environmental spaces (Fig.…”