Rabies vaccine can effectively prevent rabies

Editor's note: In recent years, the number of dogs raised and the number of dog injuries in my country has been on the rise. We can effectively prevent the occurrence of rabies through standardized post-exposure treatment of patients.

Chen Haiyan of Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a retrospective study on 628700 post-exposure cases of rabies admitted to 125 animal injury clinics in Guangzhou from 2013 to 2017, and published related papers in the journal Disease Surveillance.

The study found that the exposure rates of rabies in Guangzhou from 2013 to 2017 were 823.64/100000, 822.86/100000, 901.72/100000, 988.30/100000 and 1 187.20/100000 respectively, and the exposure rate showed an upward trend year by year.

Injuries were mainly caused by dogs, accounting for 65.53 per cent, including 44.61 per cent of rural domestic dogs and 20.92 per cent of pet dogs, followed by cats, accounting for 21.57 per cent. The wound classification of exposed persons was mainly grade II exposure cases, accounting for 56.16~61.02 of the total number of exposure prevention and treatment in that year, and grade III exposure accounted for 28.61~31.38.

All exposed cases received rabies vaccine according to the procedure, however, the use rate of rabies passive immunization agents was very low, with the use rates of rabies passive immunization agents from 2013 to 2017 being 15.06, 6.91, 7.30, 5.38 and 7.06, respectively.

Only 4 local cases occurred in Guangzhou in 2013. From 2014 to 2017, under the premise of increasing exposure rate, although the passive immunoglobulin vaccination rate is low, the whole process of human rabies vaccine can effectively prevent the occurrence of rabies.

Similar conclusions are also found in the study of Liu Jiajia and others. The team conducted a retrospective analysis of 166 confirmed rabies cases collected by national surveillance sites in 2017, and the results were published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology.

The study found that dogs were the main injured animals in confirmed rabies cases, accounting for 94.89 per cent, followed by cats (2.84 per cent). However, the source of injured animals is mainly breeding, accounting for 71.93 per cent (including self-breeding and neighbor breeding) and stray animals for 22.81 per cent. Of the 166 rabies deaths, only 6.02 per cent (10/166) of the deceased have received or are receiving post-exposure immunization, only 1.81%(3/166) had been injected with immunoglobulin.

“Rabies is preventable, controllable and incurable"It has been confirmed through a large number of clinical practices. If rabies exposure occurs, it should be treated as soon as possible to the nearby animal injury clinic for standardized post-exposure treatment, including wound treatment, full vaccination of rabies vaccine and rational use of rabies immunoglobulin.

References:

1. Chen Haiyan, Xu Conghui, Ren Wenfeng, et al. Analysis of rabies exposure monitoring results in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province from 2013 to 2017 [J]. Disease Surveillance, 2020.2.35(2):100-103.

2. Liu Jiajia, Duo Lin, Tao Xiaoyan, et al. Epidemiological characteristics of rabies in China in 2017 [J]. Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, 2019.5.40(5):526-530.