Profile of animal bite victims reporting to intradermal rabies vaccination centre at a tertiary care government hospital: 10 years experience

ABSTRACT

Background: Rabies is acute, progressive encephalitis caused by a lyssavirus. Over 95% of rabies deaths in humans result from virus transmission through the bites of infected dogs. To provide Post Exposure Prophylaxis to the people, Anti Rabies Clinics have been established in many places, especially at tertiary care centres. The Anti-Rabies Clinic at Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences, Mandya, Karnataka state (ARC-MIMS) is one such centre, the first of its kind in Karnataka state more than ten years ago. We are presenting the clinical profile of the animal bite victims who sought treatment at our centre in the past 10 years.Methods: It was a retrospective record based study conducted at Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences with sample size of 44087 using purposive sampling from May 2018 to June 2018 and data was collected using data extraction sheet.Results: Among the 44087 animal bite victims majority i.e., 66.6% were males, most of them were in the age group of 16-60 years. Sixty percent of the animal bite victims were residing in rural areas. All the category 2 and category 3 bite victims were administered anti rabies vaccination and 15.4% of the category 3 bite victims were administered rabies immunoglobulin.Conclusions: Majority of animal bite victims were presented and treated within 1 day. The practice of giving health education periodically to the school children and making phone calls to remind follow up days which is being practiced should be promoted.