Why Are Rabies Cases In China The Highest In 100 Years?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 18:14 in Health & Medicine

Rabies, an infection of the nervous system, transmitted by animal bites, causes over 50,000 deaths each year around the world. A new Chinese study has reported a dramatic spike in rabies infections. The research in BMC Infectious Diseases shows that in some provinces of China the number of human rabies cases has jumped dramatically since the new millennium. Jia-Hai Lu, from the School of Public Health at Sun Yat-Sen University, China, led a team of researchers who studied the rabies trend in China between 1990 and 2007. Lu describes how things have changed in the last eight years “In China, human rabies was largely under control during the years 1990-1996, via nation-wide rabies vaccination programs. Since the end of the century, however, cases of human rabies have jumped high enough to trigger a warning sign for control and prevention.” Read More...

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