Public health and veterinary implications of rabies in Ethiopia

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Mahendra Pal and Asefa Deressa

Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Ethiopia

: J Vet Sci Med Diagn

Abstract

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Rabies is one of the most neglected viral zoonoses in Ethiopia. The current situation analysis and statement of rabies problem in Ethiopia shows primarily a serious threat of canine rabies virus transmission in the rapidly growing human population with equally growing stray dog population of the nation. There is no clear cut demarcation between owned and scavenging dogs, as free movement of dogs from place to place is not restricted, and 80% herd immunity level is not yet maintained. Similarly, the population dynamics of dogs in urban and rural setting is not yet documented for feasible national intervention plan. Thus, within the country, rabies is of public and veterinary concern in view of the difficulty of proper diagnosis and access to effective and affordable vaccines against the agent. Therefore, this paper tries to present the public health and veterinary implications of human and animal rabies situation in Ethiopia. Human rabies surveillance in Addis Ababa shows a total of 488 human deaths between 1964 and 1975 and 386 between 2001 and 2009. The 2001-2009 retrospective record of the institute is closed a total number of 26,399 rabies suspected animals, which were clinically observed for 10 days quarantine period. According to community based national rabies rapid survey conducted during 2012 , 98.9% (15,008) of exposure cases and 97.1% (264) of fatal cases were only from five regions of Ethiopia namely, Addis Ababa, Oromia regional state, Southern Ethiopia peoples nations, nationalities regional state, and Tigray regional state. The overall national annual incidence rate of exposures and rabies deaths were 12 exposure cases/100,000 population and 1.6 rabies deaths/100,000 populations, respectively. The anti-rabies vaccine production and distribution trend has shown increase of demand for the vaccine from year to year. Accordingly, the demand for human vaccine was 10,000 doses in 2003, and it reached 30,000 doses of human vaccine in 2012. In the contrary, the animal vaccine demand was 8,000 doses in 2003 and declined to 5,000 doses of animal vaccine. This could be explained as imported animal vaccines are available in the local market and substituted the domestic use of local vaccine. The multidirectional attempts made by institute to validate and scale-up rapid diagnostic technique across the country and the establishment of cell culture based anti-rabies vaccine production for the domestic use will significantly contribute to the future rabies elimination pathway in Ethiopia.

Biography

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Email: palmahendra2@gmail.com