Rabies

Rabies is a kind of encephalitis that caused by lyssaviruses. Once the disease outbreaks, the fatality rate is almost 100%. However, if the patient bitten by animals could be hospitalized immediately to get rabies vaccine, the risk of outbreak of rabies can be effectively reduced.

Rabies is a global disease and there are cases in all around the world. It mainly happens in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates there are 55,000 rabies deaths anually, of which, 31,000 occurred in Asia, 24,000 in Africa. 30-50% of them are young children.

Since 1959, Taiwan has no new human rabies case. There were cases of imported human case from China occurring in both 2002 and 2012. In 2013, a case was imported from the Philippines. The last animal case occured in 1961 but in 2013, the Executive Council Agriculture Committee announced that lyssaviruses had been detected in wild ferret badgers, moles and puppies in Taiwan. The districts which have animals been found to have rabies are classified as potential risks areas.