RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• A. Seimenis, D.V.M.
• Director, WHO/Mediterranean Zoonoses Control
  Centre
• ATHENS, GREECE
• mzcc_at_ath.forthnet.gr, www.mzcp-zoonoses.gr

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST (ME)

• Endemic in most countries of the ME
• Mediterranean (southern and eastern) littoral
  countries with common climatic, geographical,
  socio-cultural, epidemiological characteristics
• Serious public health problems.

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• DOG main source of human infection
• CATS second most important source followed by
  other domestic animals and wild life
• WILDLIFE red fox, jackals, wolves, etc.

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Rabies in Humans approximately 300 reported
  cases annually
• Post-exposure treatment several hundreds of
  thousands
• Most cases in EGYPT, IRAQ, IRAN, PAKISTAN,
  SUDAN, YEMEN

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Rabies in Animals part only of cases are
  reported
• Laboratory confirmation upon restricted number of
  cases only
• Growing problem for certain countries, e.g. YEMEN
• Rabies in wildlife growing public health problem
• Wild animals population (red fox, jackals) on
  increase

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Epidemiological surveillance NOT well established
• Data NOT always reliable
• No regular laboratory confirmation
• Correlation between DOG and WILDLIFE rabies
  difficult

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Difficulties for efficient control programmes
• Control activities based on stray dog elimination
  and voluntary individual vaccination
• Cell-culture vaccines and immunoglobulins for
  human post-exposure treatment
• Dog mass vaccination campaigns never performed
• Lack of dog population estimates
• Dog vaccination rate not estimable

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Rabies control failure due to
• Weak infrastructures
• Inappropriate control strategies
• Lack of sustainable resources and workforce
• Weak laboratory diagnosis support
• Lack of intersectoral collaboration
• Population socio-cultural factors
• Weak community awareness.

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Wildlife rabies control-no activities
• Need for
• Ecological studies for target animals
• Vaccination strategy to be developed
• Live vaccine strain/high temperatures relation to
  be evaluated
• Trained personnel
• Adequate funding
• Intercountry agreements.

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RABIES in the MIDDLE EAST

• Weaknesses of various kind infrastructures, no
  co-operation, funds, personnel, etc.), should NOT
  BE ACCEPTABLE as they maintain DESPERATE HUMAN
  SUFFERING from preventable zoonoses,

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Thank you.
Source www. pbase.com
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