Assessment of retrospective rabies suspected cases registered at two hospitals, community and traditional healers’ knowledge, attitude and practices in south Ethiopian pastoralist

Abstract

Despite of available protective rabies vaccines for both human and animal, transmission of rabies from animals to people continues in Africa and Asia. Every year, over 59,000 people are estimated to die from the disease globally. Most of industrialized countries in Europe and North America have eliminated rabies from domestic dog populations. However, in the majority of developing countries, rabies remains endemic in domestic dog and poorly controlled. To understand rabies situation in pastoralist and agro-pastoralists area of southern Ethiopian, retrospective data on 431 rabies suspected animal bite cases registered at Bule Hora and Yabello Hospitals were collected and reviewed. Moreover, the knowledge, attitude and practice of 107 selected community members and 55 traditional healers were assessed. Out of 431 cases, 55.7% and 24.4% were <15 and between 16-25 years age group, respectively. There were more male 55.5% cases than female 44.5%. Only 32% of cases registered at Yabello Hospital received post exposure prophylaxis (PEP), whereas the remaining referred to other health facilities. Ninety eight percent (98%) of animal responsible for the bite was dog and the remaining were cat, fox and donkey. Most of bites were occurred in March-June (36.2%) and November-February (35.5%). Out of interviewed participants 87.8% of them know rabies and 83.2% were able to mention rabid animals' symptoms. The 78.5% of participants did mention how rabies transmitted to dog and 88.1% of them described dog as main source of infection. The 91.6% of participants told us that rabies is transmitted to human by rabid animals' bite and 94.3% of them believe that rabies is treatable disease and the major means of prevention is traditional treatment. Almost all traditional healers mention that the symptom of rabies in human and animals, and its way of transmission; however 90.9% of them believe that traditional treatment as effective means of rabies control. Interview result of both community members and traditional healers indicated that most of the rabies cases treated by the traditional healers. Health service providers have to make PEP vaccines available for bite victims and need to raise awareness of the local communities through health education about rabies and animal bite management.