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Thursday, December 22, 2005
If bites could kill
By Henrylito D. Tacio
Health 101
THE Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around the world more than 40,000 people die every year from rabies.
WHO also estimates that 10 million people worldwide are treated after being exposed to animals that may have rabies.
At present, rabies kills more people than yellow fever, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis. In Asia, rabies is one of the leading causes of deaths.
"Over three million Asians are bitten by rabid animals each year, and 45,000 die," says Dr. Mary Elizabeth Miranda, leader of the rabies research program at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
In the Philippines, rabies claims almost 400 people every year. The country ranks third in the region when it comes to rabies deaths--after India (where an estimated 30,000 people die each year) and China. Below the Philippines are Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
But the reported deaths are just tip of the iceberg. "Surveillance of rabies, particularly in Asia, is inadequate and not given priority compared with other infectious disease like tuberculosis and malaria," deplores Dr. Miranda.
Dr. Thiravat Hemachudha, a neurology professor at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, confirms: "There is no political commitment towards rabies prevention and control. Unreliable data are related to limitations in diagnostic laboratories and the complexity of disease manifestations."
The Thai professor warns, "With rapid movements of people and animals, cases can appear in regions where rabies has been eliminated or never recorded."
Health experts say that a virus that is in the saliva of infected animals causes rabies, and it is usually transmitted by bites from infected animals. Transmission from dogs is the most common cause of rabies.
Dogs may be infected with rabies virus in either the "furious" or the "dumb" form. Furious rabies is characterized by agitation and viciousness, followed by paralysis and finally death. "The animal's inability to swallow caused drooling of saliva," explains Dr. Jude Alon, a veterinarian who once worked with the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC).
In dumb rabies, paralytic symptoms predominate and are manifested by a dropped lower jaw, Dr Alon said. He added that a dog afflicted with rabies "changes personality." This means a previously friendly dog becomes reclusive; a shy dog, aggressive.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (December 22, 2005 issue)
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