Prevalence of rabies

Almost all human deaths caused by rabies originate from Asia and Africa. There are an estimated 55,000 human deaths annually from rabies worldwide, with about 31,000 in Asia, and 24,000 in Africa. [“Rabies” (2006) World Health Organisation. [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/] ]

The English Channel, dog licensing, killing of stray dogs, muzzling and other measures contributed to the elimination of rabies from the United Kingdom in the early 20th century. More recently, large-scale vaccination of cats, dogs and ferrets has been successful in combatting rabies in some developed countries.

The rabies virus survives in wide-spread, varied, rural fauna reservoirs. However, in Asia, parts of America and large parts of Africa, dogs remain the principal host. Mandatory vaccination of animals is less effective in rural areas. Especially in developing countries, pets may not be privately kept and their destruction may be unacceptable. Oral vaccines can be safely distributed in baits, and this has successfully reduced rabies in rural areas of France, Ontario, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, like in the City of Montréal (Québec) where baits are successfully used among raccoons in the Mont-Royal park area. Vaccination campaigns may be expensive, and a cost-benefit analysis can lead those responsible to opt for policies of containment rather than elimination of the disease.

Asia

One of the sources of recent flourishing of rabies in East Asia is the pet boom. China introduced in the city of Beijing the “one-dog policy” in November 2006 to control the problem. [ [http://www.thestar.com/News/article/238729 "The Toronto Star" “China cracks down on rabid dog menace”] ]

India has been reported as having the highest rate of human rabies in the world primarily due to stray dogs. Because of the recent decline of vultures due to acute poisoning primarily due to the anti-inflammatory diclofenac. Animal caracesses are no longer being sufficiently cleared. These carcasses contiminate the water and surrounding area and allow feral dogs to become infect after consuming it. [cite web
url = http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dead-as-a-dodo-why-scientists-fear-for-the-future-of-of-the-asian-vulture-818059.html
title = Dead as a dodo? Why scientists fear for the future of of the Asian vulture
accessdate = 2008-10-11
author =
last = Dugan
first = Emily
authorlink =
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date = 2008-04-30
year =
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publisher = The Independent
location = United Kingdom
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quote = India now has the highest rate of human rabies in the world, partly due to the increase in feral dogs.]

Africa

Poor sanitation and feral dogs rabies allow rabies to flourish in Africa.

Americas

Southern United States

Rabies was once rare in the United States outside the Southern states, but raccoons in the mid-Atlantic and northeast United States have been suffering from a rabies epidemic since the 1970s, which is now moving westwards into Ohio.cite journal | author= | title=Compendium of animal rabies prevention and control, 2006 | journal=MMWR Recomm Rep | year=2006 | pages=1–8 | volume=55 | issue=RR-5 | url=http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5505a1.htm] The particular variant of the virus has been identified in the southeastern United States raccoon population since the 1950s, and is believed to have traveled to the northeast as the result of infected raccoons being among those caught and transported from the southeast to the northeast by human hunters attempting to replenish the declining northeast raccoon population.cite journal | author=Nettles VF, Shaddock JH, Sikes RK, Reyes CR | title=Rabies in translocated raccoons | journal=Am J Public Health | year=1979 | pages=601–2 | volume=69 | issue=6 | pmid = 443502 ] As a result, urban residents of these areas have become more wary of the large but normally unseen urban raccoon population. It has become the common assumption that any raccoon seen diurnally is infected; certainly the reported behavior of most such animals appears to show some sort of illness, and necropsies can confirm rabies. Whether as a result of increased vigilance or only the common human avoidance reaction to any other animal not normally seen, such as a raccoon, there has only been one documented human rabies case as a result of this variant.cite journal|author=Dietzschold, B, Proniak, M|title=First Human Death Associated with Raccoon Rabies --- Virginia, 2003|journal=Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report|volume=52|issue=45|pages=1102–1103|publisher=Centers for Disease Control|date=2003|url=http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5245a4.htm|accessdate=2006-06-30] cite web|year=2006|title=Rabies and Wildlife|work=The Humane Society of the United States| url=http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/urban_wildlife_our_wild_neighbors/rabies__wildlife.html|accessdate=2006-06-30] This does not include, however, the greatly increasing rate of prophylactic rabies treatments in cases of possible exposure, which numbered fewer than one hundred humans annually in the state of New York before 1990, for instance, but rose to approximately ten thousand annually between 1990 and 1995. At approximately $1,500 per course of treatment, this represents a considerable public health expenditure. Raccoons do constitute approximately 50% of the approximately eight thousand documented non-human rabies cases in the United States.cite journal | author=Krebs JW, Strine TW, Smith JS, Noah DL, Rupprecht CE, Childs JE | title=Rabies surveillance in the United States during 1995 | journal=J Am Vet Med Assoc | year=1996 | pages=2031–44 | volume=209 | issue=12 | pmid = 8960176 ] Domestic animals constitute only 8% of rabies cases, but are increasing at a rapid rate.

Midwestern United States

In the midwestern United States, skunks are the primary carriers of rabies, composing 134 of the 237 documented non-human cases in 1996. The most widely distributed reservoir of rabies in the United States, however, and the source of most human cases in the U.S., are bats. Nineteen of the twenty-two human rabies cases documented in the United States between 1980 and 1997 have been identified genetically as bat rabies. In many cases, victims are not even aware of having been bitten by a bat, assuming that a small puncture wound found after the fact was the bite of an insect or spider; in some cases, no wound at all can be found, leading to the hypothesis that in some cases the virus can be contracted via inhaling airborne aerosols from the vicinity of bats. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on May 9, 1997, that a woman who died in October, 1996 in Cumberland County, Kentucky and a man who died in December, 1996 in Missoula County, Montana were both infected with a rabies strain found in silver-haired bats; although bats were found living in the chimney of the woman's home and near the man's workplace, neither victim could remember having had any contact with them. [http://0-www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/rabies/publications/mmwr_4618.html Human Rabies — Kentucky and Montana, 1996] , May 9, 1997/Vol. 46/No. 18] Similar reports among spelunkers led to experimental demonstration in animals.cite journal |author=Constantine DG |title=Rabies transmission by nonbite route |journal=Public Health Rep |volume=77 |issue= |pages=287–9 |year=1962 |pmid=13880956 |pmc=1914752 |doi= |url=] This inability to recognize a potential infection, in contrast to a bite from a dog or raccoon, leads to a lack of proper prophylactic treatment, and is the cause of the high mortality rate for bat bites.

On September 7, 2007, rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht of Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that canine rabies had disappeared from the United States. Rupprecht emphasized that the disappearance of the canine-specific strain of rabies virus in the US does not eliminate the need for dog rabies vaccination as dogs can still become infected from exposure to wildlife [ [http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0741162020070907 Reuters, U.S. free of canine rabies virus] ] .

Rabies-free jurisdictions

[

Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Fiji, Guam, Hawaii, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Japan and Taiwan/ROC.]

Many island territories—such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Taiwan, Japan, Hawaii, Mauritius, Barbados, and Guam—are free of rabies, although there may be a very low prevalence of rabies among bats in the UK; see below.

New Zealand and Australia have never had rabies. [http://epix.hazard.net/topics/animal/rabies.htm] However, in Australia, the Australian Bat Lyssavirus occurs normally in both insectivorous and fruit-eating bats (flying foxes) from most mainland states. Scientists believe it is present in bat populations throughout the range of flying foxes in Australia.

The UK is not completely free of rabies, as a new form of the lyssavirus has been found in some bats which could possibly affect humans. There has been one case of a bite from an infected bat, but the victim showed no symptoms of the virus and was vaccinated quickly as a precaution.

See also

* Rabies

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

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