ABSTRACT
Background: Rabies being a preventable disease with no treatment available once onset starts but can be easily prevented by post-exposure among all animal bite victims. So it is essential to take the full course of vaccination for complete protection.Methods: The present study was a hospital based cross sectional study and was carried out in rural health training centre in Maner, Patna.Results: Our study included 340 patients who attended anti rabies clinic for post exposure prophylaxis. Among them 65% were children (<15 years) comprising mostly males (69%) and mostly of category III exposure. Direct cost of post exposure vaccination when compared with the cost of pre exposure prophylaxis is one-third (approx).Conclusions: Compliance to anti-rabies vaccination for post-exposure prophylaxis is still low and they are still at risk of developing rabies. Reasons being irregular supply of vaccine and immunoglobulin in government hospitals, loss of wages, forgotten dates, cost incurred to buy from outside and distance from the hospital if referred to other centre. Seeing the current scenario, planning and prioritizing areas to achieve our goal and lessen economic burden is need of the hour. We infer that pre exposure prophylaxis may be a cost effective strategy which can aid in the control and elimination of rabies in endemic settings.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Injury is a major, preventable public health problem in terms of morbidity, premature mortality or disability. This study aims to assess the epidemiology of injury in patients admitted to a tertiary care centre in northern India. Materials and Methods: Observational, Descriptive, secondary data based study of injury patients admitted in surgical emergency department of Government Medical College Hospital Chandigarh from July 2009 to June 2010. Results: Out of these total 7222 patients, 4129(57.2%) were of Road Traffic Accident (RTA) and 22.8% were of Assault. Male were at high risk of RTA. Although, overall males were at higher risk of assault but middle aged women were at higher risk than their counterparts. For ‘fall ‘females were at high risk. Assault cases were more prevalent during summer, while RTA cases were more prevalent during winter season and fall during rainy season were reportedly more. Majority (33.0%) of RTA injury was in the age group of 20-39 years (most productive age) and in the age group of <10 years falls were most common (56.0% of all injury).