Moving towards the elimination of rabies in Thailand.

Human rabies is regarded as a fatal disease; however, its occurrence is preventable. Prevention consists of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for humans and controlling the main cause through dog vaccination. In Thailand, health care budgets are increasingly allocated to human PEP rather than eradication of rabies in dogs. This is the case, even if controlling rabies in the dog population is a more cost-effective, longterm approach to prevent human rabies than PEP. While the principal cause of rabies is the roaming stray dogs, the impetus for control and removal is hampered by a lack of awareness of its true impact. The declaration of an annual World Rabies Day, September 8, is an initial effort to raise global awareness of the ongoing and unnecessary tragedy of rabies.

Real-time PCR analysis of dog cerebrospinal fluid and saliva samples for ante-mortem diagnosis of rabies.

The use of a 10-day observation to determine whether a dog is rabid is standard practice. This study was conducted in order to look for evidence of rabies vius in saliva and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of suspected live rabid dogs at the time of quarantine by using a SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR based assay for the detection of rabies virus RNA. Saliva and CSF of dogs were collected once on the day of admission for the 10-day quarantine. All test dogs were or became ill and died of rabies within the observation period. Thirteen of 15 dogs (87%) had saliva samples that were positive for rabies RNA. Two dogs with furious rabies had negative saliva samples. Positive CSF samples were found in 4 of 15 dogs (27%) whose saliva samples were positive. The time from sample collection to result was less than 5 hours. Because virus may be absent or present at very low level in both clinical fluids, samples taken for ante-mortem diagnosis cannot definitively rule out rabies.

Oral bacterial flora of dogs with and without rabies: a preliminary study in Thailand.

The authors studied the bacterial flora of the dog oral cavity and of bite wounds, Aerobic bacteria were isolated from mouth swabs of 16 normal and 5 rabid dogs as well as from infected dog-bite wounds from 18 patients. A total of 20 different microbial species were recovered from mouth swab cultures. The most frequently isolated organisms were Klebsiella pneumoniae ssp pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Citrobacter freundii, Enterobacter cloacae, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, and Pasteurella species. There were no differences in the aerobic bacterial flora between rabid and nonrabid dogs. From the cultures of the bite wound swabs, the authors found that almost all of the organisms identified were part of the normal oral flora of the dog. One or more aerobic bacteria were isolated from the infected dog-bite wounds. Two patients had four, 3 had three, 4 had two, and 6 had one of the nine organisms in their wounds. The predominant species of bacteria involved in infection of bite wounds were, as follows: Staphylococcus aureus, Pasteurella multocida, E. coli, Moraxella species, Pasteurella canis, and Enterobacter cloacae. However, three wound cultures had no aerobic bacterial growth. The results of this study show that the infected bite wounds may contain a mixed bacterial flora that colonize human skin and the oral cavity of dogs.