Asia - Nearly half of global rabies deaths in SE Asia

More than 1.4 billion people are potentially at risk of rabies in South-east Asia, which has also reported more deaths due to it than anywhere else, thanks to deadly combination of large human and dog population in congested habitable areas coupled with rampant poverty.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says, children in the 5-15 age group represents 40 percent of people exposed to dog bites in SE Asia.

Dog bites are the primary source of human infection in all rabies-endemic countries in the region, and account for 96 percent of human rabies cases.

Rabies kills 21, 000-24, 000 people in the region, which is approximately 45 percent of global deaths due to the disease. The actual figure is likely to be far higher since many cases of rabies are not reported, the WHO said.

Every year, more than 4 million people in this region receive rabies vaccine and serum after being bitten or exposed to animals that are suspected of rabies.

WHO has asked countries to ensure access to modern tissue-culture rabies vaccine. "Rabies is a fatal disease, but it can and must be prevented," said Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, regional director, WHO SEARO. "Rabies is a serious public health problem in South-East Asia, and countries must develop and carry out comprehensive national rabies control programmes through partnership in order to sustain prevention of rabies and move towards elimination of human rabies," he added.

Sri Lanka and Thailand have successfully brought down the number of rabies-related human deaths through mass dog vaccination campaigns, improved accessibility to human rabies vaccine and serum and an effective vaccine delivery system. Both countries have successfully adopted the intra-dermal rabies vaccination to ensure access, affordability and availability of modern rabies vaccine.

In India, intra-dermal rabies vaccination has been promoted at the state level, and anti-rabies vaccination and birth control of dogs have been carried out by animal welfare and NGOs.

Killer bite

*Rabies is an acute viral encephalitis transmitted from an infected animal to human by exposure to saliva

*Once clinical symptoms have occurred, the disease is almost invariably fatal

*Rabies is most common in people aged below 15 years

*Rabies is an incurable disease

*Rabies claims over 19,000 lives in India, or nearly 35 percent of such deaths worldwide

*Over 96 percent of these human rabies cases are due to bites from rabid dogs of which 11 percent are due to rabid pet dog bites

*India has about 27 million dogs, with the dog human ratio being 1:40

*The majority of these dogs are stray

*The animal bite incidence has been estimated to be 1.7 percent, with a total of 17 million bites every year

*Globally, an estimated 10 million are treated each year after being bitten by dogs

*Of this, 1.8 million receive the treatment in India alone.

*India spends Rs 300 crore on post-dog bite treatment in humans

*Rabies is the 10th most common cause of death from infections in humans

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