Dog rabies data reported to multinational organizations from Southern and Eastern African countries

摘要

ObjectiveRabies is one of the viral diseases with the highest case fatality rate in humans. The main transmission route to humans is through bites, especially of infected dogs. Decisions on the allocation of resources to control and reduce the socio-economic impacts of rabies require reliable data. Several national, regional and international organizations have been gathering rabies data for more than a decade. The objective of this paper was to examine the consistencies in the number of dog rabies cases reported to different multinational organizations by Southern and Eastern African countries and to explore the presence of any time trend among the reported rabies data. ResultsData was systematically extracted from the databases of the Southern and Eastern African Rabies Group—SEARG and the World Organization for Animal Health/World animal health information—OIE/WAHID. Despite differences in entities by which data have been reported to the two organisations, reported numbers were significantly correlated (Spearman’s rho?=?0.52, P