Comparison of animal rabies from Northern Provinces of Iran referred to the Amol Research Center (ARC) during 2007

摘要

Rabies has been endemic in Northern provinces of Iran for long time and it was a cause of some outbreaks of disease especially in Golestan province. This study has been carried out to compare rabies cases in northern part Provinces of Iran including Mazandaran, Golestan, Gilan and Ardabil during 2007. In this study, data analysis indicated percentage of positive cases in suspected rabies samples in Mazandaran were among dog (%37.5), cow, sheep/goat (%100) and human (%64.3); in Golestan were among dog, cow, wolf, sheep/ goat, horse/ donkey (%100); in Gilan were among cow (%95) and in Ardabil they were observed in dog (%50), cow (%95.8), wolf and sheep/goat (%100). In this study, data analysis indicated percentage of rabies positive cases in four provinces of Iran were %100 in Golestan, %90.5 in Gilan, %85.3 in Ardabil and %64.3 in Mazandaran. The results of this study also emphasized the important role of wildlife in disseminating of human rabies in Northern provinces. These results confirmed a high prevalence rate of animal form of rabies in northern district of Iran, and it underlined the importance of animal bites and rabies, which is required an extra precaution strategy. Introduction Rabies is an acute fatal viral encephalitis that usually transmitted from animals to man followed by domestic and wild animal bites ( 1 , 2 ). According WHO annual reports in 2000, rabies disease is one of the most important public health problems in some countries of the world such as those in the Eastern Mediterranean region. In Asia, most of the mortality cases of human rabies were reported from the underdeveloped countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh which have high populations and have no specific strategies for controlling rabies. Reliable data on rabies is scarce in many areas of the globe, making it difficult to assess its full impact on human and animal health. WHO commissioned a re-assessment of the burden of rabies in 2004. According WHO reports in 2004, the annual number of deaths worldwide caused by rabies is estimated to be 55,000, mostly in rural areas of Africa and Asia. An estimated 10 million people receive post-exposure treatments each year after being exposed to rabies-suspect animals. The overall incidence of animal bites in the coastal regions of Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf areas was 428.5 and 186 per 100,000 of human population per year, respectively ( 3 ).Rabies is endemic in the wildlife population in Iran where the infection of domestic livestock is frequent ( 4 ). Rabies has a special place in the history of medical research in Iran ( 5 ). Historically, in 1919, an Iranian delegation, dispatched in the peace treaty after World War I, visited the Pasteur Institute in Paris and made arrangements for the establishment of the Pasteur Institute for rabies prophylaxis in Iran. They first started to make rabies vaccines using the spinal cords of rabbits; however, these vaccines were later changed to the formal phenol-treated vaccines using the spinal cords of lambs a process which is currently utilized in many parts of the world. Thereafter, many research studies of international importance on rabies were carried out in Iran ( 5 , 6 ) including the first successful field trial on the use of serum for post-exposure prophylaxis ( 5 ). To prevent infection of rabies virus penetration, anti-rabies serum was injected both systemically and locally; however, unfortunately because of virus settlement in the central nervous system (CNS) and appearance of clinical symptoms, the treatment-prophylaxis regimen was not effective. As a consequence, management of this problem is one of the most important priorities of the Iran Health Ministry. Materials and Methods Different suspected rabies samples from wild and domestic animals including dog, cow, cat, fox, wolf, jackal, sheep/ goat, horse / donkey and human were referred to the Amol Research Center (ARC, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Amol, Mazandaran, Iran) from Golestan, Mazan