Current situation and control strategy of rabies in China
Tu Changchun
Military Veterinary Institute of Military Medical Sciences
Diagnostic laboratories of Ministry of Agriculture on rabies and wildlife and zoonosis
Introduction of the Lab
• Diagnostic laboratories on rabies and wildlife and zoonosis:
• Established in 2005 under the approval of Ministry of Agriculture.
Carry out epidemiology survey, monitoring, diagnose, disease
emergency response, technical training and consultation. Playing
the role of reference laboratory in disease control.
• There are 1 academician,3 researchers, 2 associate researchers, 6
technical staffs, 10 graduate students.
Laboratory capacity building
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In accordance with the OIE and the WHO criteria, laboratory set up and master the
diagnosis of rabies, formed RT-PCR and fluorescent antibody staining method for
rapid virus detection, suckling mice inoculated with cell culture for virus isolation,
fluorescent neutralization test for antibody monitoring as the main method of
comprehensive virus detection and isolation and identification technology system,
fully able to meet the need of daily epidemiological investigation, clinical diagnosis
and disease emergency response, and provide the test results within 24 hours of
receiving the specimen.
sampling techniques
Fluorescence Antibody Test (FAT)
FAVN
RT-PCR
MIT
The isolation and identification of viruses
SOP
A number of independent research and development of new diagnostic techniques:
quantitative RT-PCR, test strip, ELISA, gene chips
Automatic high-throughput detection technology platform of rabies samples
Technical Training
• In 2006, 2007 held the training courses of National
Rabies Prevention and Diagnosis Technique for twice
under the arrangement of the Veterinary Bureau of the
Ministry of Agriculture.
International Cooperation
• In 2002, set up cooperative relationship with VLA.
• In 2008, OIE officially granted the sister relationship with
VLA.
• Member of OIE Rabies special expert team
• Participated in the 2010 International Rabies Lab
Comparison:
100% compliance of all test items
Rabies
Lyssavirus
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Rhabdoviridae;
Infect all warm-blooded animal;
Natural reservoir-dogs and wildlife;
Damage the nerve center;
Migration along the nerve fibers to the CNS,
3mm/hr;
• Death rate 100%;
• Transmission - bite wounds;
• Resistance to the environment is not strong.
Members of LyssavirusGenus
• Divided into seven genotypes, the infected usually genotype 1.
There is cross protection within types, the cross protection between
types is weak.
• 1. Classical rabies virus(RABV): Genotype 1，Serum 1
• 2. Lagos bat virus(LBV): Genotype 2， Serum 2
• 3. Mokola virus(MOKV): Genotype 3， Serum 3
• 4. Duvenhage virus (DUUV): Genotype 4， Serum 4
• 5. EBLV1（ Genotype 5）
• 6. EBLV2（ Genotype 6)
• 7. ABLV (Genotype 7)
• 8.Aravan
• 9.Khujand
• 10.Irkut
• 11.West Caucasian bat virus
Transmission cycle of rabies
Ecological distribution of rabies virus
Distribution of rabies
• Distribution of animal rabies
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Distribution of human rabies
Global human rabies: Asia: ~31000 (56% )，90% in rural area
Africa: ~24000 (44%)，75% in rural area
Other parts of the world<500
RABIES (Situation in Asia)
• Rabies deaths in Asia ~31 000/year, the dog is the main source of
transmission.
• Of which:
• India: 25~30K/ year, World No.1
• China:>~3K/year, World No.2
Distribution of human rabies in China
Disease burden of rabies in China
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Human:
Exposed current status:
In 2005: Annual exposure rate in Guangxi and Guizhou area: ~10%
Annual exposure rate in big city with low incidence like Beijing,
Shanghai: ~1%. i.e: Jan-June in 2006, there were 69,332 exposed
cases in Beijing.
In 2007: High incidence in rural areas Ⅱ, Ⅲ degree of exposure rate: ~
5.5%.
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The financial burden of post-exposure treatment:
Vaccine :250-300 yuan/person, RIG :180-1300 yuan/person,
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Theory burden: the vaccine: 18 billion (5% exposure rate, that is, 65 million people were injured);
RIG :6-4.2billion (2.5% Ⅲ degree of exposure rate, which is 32.5 million)
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The actual burden: more than 10 million vaccine use each year, the cost> 3 billion.
RIG useage each year
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Data from CDC
Disease burden of rabies in China
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Animal:
Burden of animal rabies control:
Vaccine use on governmental budget
Labor cost: 10 RMB/dog
Mental pressure: danger of being bitten and risk of exposure to rabid dogs.
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vaccine shot to rural dogs is a dangerous job for countryside vets. They always fear
for dog bite. Each year there are a lot countryside vets bitten by dogs when they
apply vaccine immunization to the animals. There were two vets die of rabies after
dog bite when they injected vaccine.
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To calculate the burden (dogs in rural areas only): dog 80 million; seedlings: 0.2
yuan/agent (live); 3 yuan/agent (dead); injection cost?
Current status of animal rabies
• Epidemiological analysis:
• 1.Dog infection remains the main source of human rabies, plays the
absolute dominance of the prevalence of human rabies.
• 2.Dog rabies is still mainly high degree dissemination but the the
incidence of dog bites often occurs.
• 3.Still difficult to calculate the dog and other animal rabies, but since
2005, many provinces strengthened dog management and immunity.
• 4.The current decline outbreak of human rabies has fully proved the
animal rabies control measure we took has achieved initial success,
which added confidence for the future strengthening of animal rabies
control.
Current status of animal rabies
• Monitoring:
• Currently, animal rabies surveillance system is imperfect, which only
conducted very limited antibody monitoring and pathogen
monitoring.
• Inadequate sources of samples
• The monitor focused on the healthy animals but ignored the testing
on the infected and the incidence animals, therefore, the monitoring
data is not representative, which can not reflect the real epidemic in
China.
• The laboratory testing of apparently healthy carriers of the virus
infection in dogs vary widely, from <1% to >20%.
• Not enough investigations on rabies virus infection in wild animals.
Current status of animal rabies
• Dog: rural dogs, not pet dogs, accounts for
95% of animal rabies
• Domestic animals: pig, sheep, cow
• Wild animals: rats, deers, bats, ferret
badgers, raccoons
Surveillance of bat rabies
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Bat rabies serological survey: Samples from Guangdong (6), Yunnan (1),
Guangxi (2), Hainan (1).
Surveillance of bat rabies
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Epidemiological investigation of bat rabies antibody:
Positive varieties infection：
Rousettus leschenaulti
Rhinolophus ferrumequinum
Rhinoophusblythi
Infection rate：
Total infection：2.2%（15/685）
Fruit bats ：2.3% (12/514)
Insectivorous bats ：1.8% (3/171)
Distribution: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan
Current Status of Animal Rabies Control
• Ministry of Agriculture promulgated the "Rabies Control
Technical Specifications ":
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Provides for the diagnosis of animal rabies, disease reporting,
disease treatment, prevention measures, control and elimination of
standards. It is the technical documents guide the work of the
national animal rabies control.
• Regulates annual monitoring and immunization programs of
animal rabies:
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Require the important provinces to launch animal rabies
monitoring and immune prevention. Monitoring provides the
sampling time, objects, proportion and detection methods;
immunization program requirements to carry out the two large-scale
dog immunization campaigns each year.
Current Status of Animal Rabies Control
• Immunization Status：
• For a long time, the government pays for the rural dogs immune
vaccine, and only charge the cost of injection fees.
• Various levels of dog immunity throughout the country.
• Many non-epidemic provinces or cities and counties do not
immunized.
• Due to lack of special funds for immunization, only some provinces
and municipalities carry out a limited dog immunization, low
coverage of immunization, and dog immunization doesn’t
continuously maintained.
• However, in economically developed cities such as Beijing,
Guangzhou and Shenzhen, started free vaccination to the city's
urban and rural dogs.
Problems in Rabies Control
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The backward situation of dog raising management and
animal (dog) rabies prevention and control system, is the
direct cause of high human rabies.
Backward in concepts: animal (dog) rabies awareness is
not strong, strategic bias;
Backward in management: lack of a comprehensive dog
raising management;
Backward in work: lack of routine monitoring,
immunization coverage is low;
Backward in technical support: lack of expertise and
specialized laboratories.
Problems in Rabies Control
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Weak awareness of Animals (dogs) rabies prevention.
Government is not paying enough attention, concept bias, leading to an unclear main
body under the epidemic prevention. Animals than to men is not heavy, not heavy
weight off the dog and immune regulation of dogs, adopt a "fighting style " control,
lack of sustained prevention work; Pay more attention on humans than animals,
eliminate dogs than monitor and immune dogs, adopted a way of fighting to control,
lack of sustained prevention work;
Unreasonable prevention and control mechanism, lack of effective cooperation
between departments.
The government does not invest pecial funds;
Inadequate veterinary, animal rabies prevention and control has not been brought into
the veterinary priorities, lack of professional and technical personnel, few laboratory
testing work carried out.
Animal rabies prevention and control of the provinces is very uneven, not much of
areas standardize the sampling and submit in a timely manner;
People lack of understanding and do not report the disease, not willing to immune the
animal, do not sent the dead animals for inspection. Difficult to carry out dog
immunization in rural areas;
Problems in Rabies Control
• Lack of comprehensive management on dog
breeding, in the status of anarchy.
• The city implemented registration, immunization,
but the unreasonable charge fee forced large
amount of dog breeding houshold go under, an
alarming number of unregistered household with
dogs.
• Rural areas is almost no regulation on dog
breeding, in the free status.
• Results: The number of national kennel unclear,
an estimated 80 million.
Problems in Rabies Control
• Deficiencies of daily monitoring on animal rabies control,
low immunization coverage:
• Animal rabies epidemiology background is not accurate;
• Culling of ill and stray dogs, seldom report about the
dogs under safety culling to veterinary institutions and
handle it roughly without requiring veterinary inspection.
• Low average dog immunization coverage.
• Results: The veterinary department do not know the real
epidemic, the reported animal cases is far less than the
reported cases of people.
Problems in Rabies Control
• The number of reported animal rabies:
• ——The incidence is much lower than the corresponding period.
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Animal rabies prevention and control 2000-2006
Year
Incidence
Death Toll
Cull Toll
2000
14
11
2492
2001
2002
2003
862
300
909
2004
208
57
899
2005
337
134
14819
2006
127
44
5681
Problems in Rabies Control
• The current monitoring does not reflect the
real situation of animal rabies epidemic!
Detection and monitoring of rabies
• 2009 Monitoring: apparently healthy dogs
Detection and monitoring of rabies
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Monitoring results of dog rabies in
Chongqing :
2009, 360 healthy dogs saliva
testing, all negative;
June 2010 in Tongliang County,
Qijiang County, Qianjiang County,
Fuling County collected a total of
81 healthy dogs saliva samples,
all negative;
2005 to July 2010 in Chongqing
totally detected 60 clinical
samples suspected of dogs, of
which 38 samples were positive.
(Results see table)
Shows: The detection of incident
animal reflects more on the
prevalence.
Incident Animal Saliva Detox Detection
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Experimentally infected
dogs (D3, D2, D8)
symptoms obviously, all
dead and brain tissue FAT
and RT-PCR strongly
positive.
D2 a lot of salivation (see
Figure), D3 and D8 less
saliva.
Incident Animal Saliva Detox Detection
• 2010 Shanxi Yangqu sheep rabies outbreak detection.
• No 1,2,3 incident sheep
saliva positive out of 5 samples;
• No 4 incident sheep and early
onset of the infected dogs saliva
were negative.
Detection and monitoring of rabies
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Two errors in monitoring :
1. Detection of healthy dogs: results are uneven, representative is not strong, can not
reflect the true situation.
Because: ① special transmission; ② healthy dogs often do not infected
2. testing saliva samples: not reliable
Because: Saliva Detox is intermittent, so can not be detected does not mean no
infection.
Results: 1. The cost of monitoring healthy animals is much higher than the incidence
animal surveillance, however the obtained epidemiological information is far less than
the incident animals: from 2004-2009, monitored 12,011 samples of healthy dogs,
with only 46 positive infections, involving 4 provinces and 1 species of animals
(dogs); however, the detection of 98 incident animals samples found 56 positives,
involving 11 provinces, 6 species of animals (dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, raccoon, and
badger.)
2. Animal rabies seriously underestimated: reported animal cases are more than 10
times lower than the number of the cases of people.
Proper monitoring:
Close attention to the incident animals (dogs), once found the dog with disease,
abnormal behavior, or frequent wounding, should be immediately reported, cull for
inspection or quarantine.
Rabies Control
• Eradication of rabies in three major
strategies:
• Legislation, management and education: It is the
social basis of the control of rabies.
• Epidemiological surveillance: is the prerequisite
for the control of rabies.
• Immunization: an important guarantee for the
control of rabies.
Rabies Control
• Legislation, management and education: It is the social basis of
the control of rabies.
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Dog breeding license and registration system (including rural)
Control and eradication of stray dogs or wild dogs;
Strict immunization measures;
Establish provincial level RV testing laboratories at the provincial
veterinary quarantine station, to carry out year round RV diagnose
on animal, epidemiological and immune monitoring;
• The government's administrative and financial support;
• Technical training: to train specialized technical staff on RV Control
(provincial, municipal, county and township);
• Community and rural education, spread knowledge of rabies
prevention.
Rabies Control
• Epidemiological surveillance: is the prerequisite for the
control of rabies.
• RV natural host in the region and the infected host species,
distribution and cross-border flows and so on, a clear focus on
preventing the animals;
• Develop the awareness of submitting dead animals (dogs) for
detection, raise the sample submission rate;
• Monitor the virus infected situation of the important host and the
strains type in high infection region: Rural area with dog
concentrated is the key;
• RV antibody screening on wildlife which relate to human life;
• Rabies incidence and epidemiological investigation of local people
(CDC), once found the patient, should immediate conduct pointed
epidemiological investigations.
Rabies Control
• Compulsory immunization: an important guarantee for
the control of rabies.
• Rural dogs immunity: use attenuated vaccine, as soon as possible
to contain the outbreak. Oral bait vaccine is urgently needed in rural
areas.
• City pet immunity: the use of inactivated vaccine.
• Wildlife immunity: oral attenuated or genetically engineered vaccine
bait.
• WHO research shows that 75% of the dog group immunization rates
could high efficiently block the spread of RV chain.
• Three months old dogs and cats should take the first time of
immunization, one year old to take the second time, and then
immune once every year.
Rabies Control
• American rabies control achievements:
• 80s PAHO implemented the "Regional plan of rabies
elimination", due to the control of the rabies virus
prevalence among canine group in a greater extent, dog
rabies dropped to 1,311 cases in 2002 from 6,716 cases
in 1993, down rate 81%, human rabies dropped to 39
cases in 2002 from the 216 cases in 1993, down rate
82%.
Suggestion on current prevention and control
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Summarize the achievements on the work of prevention and control in recent years,, improve
publicity, enhance confidence, identify problems, gaps and improve the work;
Formulation and publish the national level rabies control and elimination programs as soon as
possible, such as the “Twelfth Five Year animals canine rabies control programs”, special funds to
implement prevention and control of rabies, of complete the control of canine rabies within 5-10
years;
Each province establish integrated rabies control and management office under the direct
leadership of government and composed together with relevant departments, unify organize and
coordinate dog breeding management and rabies prevention and control in the province.
Implement dog breeding licensing and registration as well as compulsory vaccination system in
rural areas with more dogs, particularly in high rabies incidence area, establish monitoring
mechanism.
Governments at all levels should allocate special funds each year, specifically for the local animal
immunization, surveillance and technical training, etc., to ensure periodic immunization,
unremittingly.
Animal disease prevention institutions at all levels should take the animal rabies control in the
region as a routine veterinary vaccination work, establish and improve disease surveillance,
reporting and handling system, report each outbreak, and to submit the clinical disease samples
to reference laboratories in a timely manner.
Conditional provincial Animal CDC should establish provincial level Rabies laboratory testing
capacity, and form the network with our national laboratory.
Thank you
• Veterinary Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture
• China Animal Disease Control Center
• Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Shanxi,
Hunan animal epidemic control center.
• Public service sectors (agriculture) research
projects “animal rabies surveillance and control
technology research and demonstration”
• Rabies Expert Group of Expert Committee on
Animal Epidemic Prevention