Eradication of rabies in the Philippines.

RABIES is an important zoonosis. While it is primarily a disease of animals, it can be transmitted to man by bites of infected animals. Of all the infectious diseases that afflict man, rabies is the most dreadful and gruesome. Once the disease becomes manifest, medical science is helpless. One can only watch as the patient succumbs to an agonizing and horrible death. The fatality rate for rabies is almost always 100 percent; but despite being a fatal disease, rabies is easily preventable. Rabies is one of the reportable human diseases in the Republic of the Philippines. The annual reported incidence of deaths from 1958 to 1968 ranged from 155 to 383, with a mortality rate of 0.4 to 1.2 per 100,000 population (table 1), and all known sources of exposure being the dog (1). The preponderance of cases occurred among children of school age and among adolescents (table 2). The mortality rate for rabies was higher than for poliomyelitis, whooping cough, or typhoid fever. Globally, the Philippines ranked second in human deaths from rabies (2). While rabies virus has been isolated from a large number of animals, not all of these animals can transmit the infection. From the viewpoint of human infection, the dog is the most important reservoir and transmitter of rabies. In some countries, however, wildlife rabies has become a major problem as the underlying reservoir for maintaining the disease. The vampire bat of Mexico and Central and South America (3); skunks in the midwestem and far western United States (4); foxes along the Ohio-Mississippi River Valleys and in the southwestern United States (5); mongooses, polecats, and civet cats in South Africa (6, 7); wolves and foxes in arctic and subarctic areas of the Northern Hemisphere (8); and jackals, foxes, wild dogs, mongooses, and civet cats in India (9) have maintained and transmitted the rabies virus. The establishment of rabies in wildlife populations in other countries has compounded the rabies problem and raised it to alarming magnitudes. Rabies is enzootic in all continents except Australia and Antarctica. Many countries, including Great Britain, Cyprus, and New Zealand, and the State of Hawaii have also been historically free from rabies because of stringent regulations, which are rigidly enforced, concerning the entry of dogs and cats. No effective treatment has yet been made available for rabies despite the achievements of modern medical science. The prophylactic measure deDr. Arambulo is chief of the division of research and laboratory, Veterinary Inspection Board, City of Manila, and professorial lecturer, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of the Philippines. Dr. Beran is director, Van Houwelling Laboratory for Microbiological Research, Silliman University Medical Center, Dumaguete City. Dr. Escudero is dean of the college. Tearsheet requests to Dr. Primo V. Arambulo III, Division of Research and Laboratory, Veterinary Inspection Board, Vitas, Tondo, Manila, Philippines.