Human rabies in C ôte d'Ivoire 2014-2016: Results following reinforcements to rabies surveillance

by Issaka Tiembr é, Anaïs Broban, Joseph Bénié, Mathilde Tetchi, Sophie Druelles, Maïna L’Azou In Côte d’Ivoire, rabies is endemic and remains largely uncontrolled. The numbers of human exposures and rabies cases are unknown and are probably much higher than reported. Data on human rabies cases are collected by the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) Anti-rabies Center in Abidjan through a network of 28 NIPH local units, which cover the population of the entire country. During 2014, the NIPH initiated a program to reinforce the human rabies surveillance system in those 28 NIPH local units, with specific goals of improving the infrastructure, training, communication, and gove rnment involvement. Here, we report the progress and findings during 2014–2016. The reinforced system recorded 50 cases of human rabies (15–18 cases/year; annual incidence = 0.06−0.08 per 100,000) and more than 30,000 animal exposures (annual incidence = 41.8−48.0 per 100,000). Almost one-ha lf of the human rabies cases were in children ≤15 years old. All were fatal and dog bites were the most common route by which rabies virus was transmitted. In the 32 cases where samples of sufficient quality for analysis were available, rabies was confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chai n reaction RT-PCR. Post-exposure prophylaxis with rabies vaccine was administered to all animal exposure victims presenting at the NIPH local units, although only about 57% completed the full immu...
Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Source Type: research