Retrospective study on rabies at selected districts of Tigray Region, Northern Ethiopia

A retrospective study was conducted on the prevalence of rabies at selected districts of Tigray (Gantafeshum, Enderta, Mekelle, and Adigrat) from 2008 to April 2009 for human and animals. In addition to the retrospective study, a questionnaire was also prepared and circulated to 420 study participants. As per the information collected, 267 animals and humans died of rabies and the highest percentage of cases was in dogs (70.8%) followed by bovine (9.80%), human (7.10%), equine (6.75%), hyena (3.75%) and ovine (1.87%). On comparing the rabies cases in the areas, it was noticed that maximum cases occurred in Gantafeshm (32.58%), followed by Enderta (27.34%), Mekelle (25.1%), and Adigrat (14.98%). Year wise data collected indicated that the maximum cases of rabies in animals occurred in the year 2006 (25.0%) followed by 2007 and 2008 (19.44), 2004 (13.9%), 2003, and 2005 (11.1%). From the post bite treatment, it is indicated that in Mekelle out of a total of 2798 cases, 59.4% (n=1662) belong to male and 40.6% (n=1136) to females indicating that cases were more in males than females and maximum cases coming to hospitals were in the year 2007 (21.94%) followed by 2006 (20.8%), 2008 (19.2%), 2005 (17.9%), 2004 (11.4%) and 2003 (8.60%). In Adigrat, out of a total of 864 cases, 60.3% (n=521) were in males and 39.69% (n=343) in females and maximum number of cases coming to hospitals were in the year 2006 (21.8%) followed by 2007 (17.5%), 2004 (17.1%), 2008 (16.4%), 2005 (14.7%) and 2003 (12.5%). The study revealed that rabies was prevalent in the districts. Rabies cases in human being were observed to be more in people living in villages than those living in urban areas. Thus, awareness creation about the disease should be recommended in order to design effective prevention and control methods. Key words: Animal, human, rabies, retrospective, Tigray, Ethiopia.