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Geographical distribution

Based on official disease reports to the WOAH

Rabies is a disease listed in the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Terrestrial Animal Health Code and must be reported to the WOAH. The map to the right displays outbreak points reported to the WOAH early warning system since 2005.

As described in the WOAH Terrestrial Animal Health Code, the WOAH early warning system includes immediate notifications and follow-up reports on:

  • First occurrences of a listed disease,
  • Recurrence of an eradicated listed disease,
  • First occurrences of new strain of a pathogenic agent of a listed disease,
  • Recurrence of an eradicated strain,
  • Sudden and unexpected changes in the distribution or increase in incidence or virulence of, or morbidity or mortality caused by the pathogenic agent of a listed disease
  • Occurrence of a listed disease in an unusual host species.

Countries are coloured according to the available information regarding their stable disease situation (disease situation legend). This information is provided by countries through the WOAH monitoring system, which is a different reporting channel.
The disease situations (country/region colours) are prioritized in the following order: Present, Suspected and Absent if more than one is present in a country during the filtered period.
Immediate notifications (points) and disease situation (country/region colours) are reported to the WOAH in different spatial and temporal scales, and therefore are displayed in the map as layers which can be filtered independently.

Last updated at: 2024-04-29

For more up to date reports, visit the original data source: WOAH-WAHIS.

Epi studies

Epidemiological studies investigating disease dynamics and measures of disease frequency

The panel to the right shows the distribution of epidemiological studies collected in the literature review. Click on the map to see more information about the studies. The following study context categories are considered:

  • Case reports
  • Passive surveillance (reports of specific surveillance activities following reported cases)
  • Evidence of disease freedom (investigations to confirm disease absence)
  • Observational study (case-control or cohort studies)
  • Active surveillance (active testing of animals and search for cases)
  • Survey (designed sampling and testing of animals)

It is important to note that studies targetting humans were NOT included in the systematic literature reviews.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Disease

Animal Health Impact

A summary of the disease in animal hosts is given in the WOAH Technical disease card.

The panel to the right summarizes evidence collected from published studies describing natural infections with this agent (as opposed to experimental infections, summarized in dedicated section).

It is important to note that studies targetting humans were NOT included in the systematic literature reviews.

Public Health

Rabies is a zoonosis, a disease that is transmitted from animals to humans. People are usually infected following a deep bite or scratch from an animal with rabies. Transmission can also occur if saliva of infected animals comes into direct contact with mucosa (e.g. eyes or mouth) or fresh skin wounds. Visit the WHO for information of relevance for Public Healt.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering studies investigating natural infections with this agent, and published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Experimental Inf.

Refer to the WOAH Technical disease card for a key summary of the disease in animal hosts.

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing the health effects of this pathogen in host animal species. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Host species
  • Start of clinical signs (incubation period)
  • Duration of clinical signs
  • All diverse types of clinical signs reported in the different host species
  • Case fatality
  • Meta-analysis of the reported duration of observable clinical signs, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups

It is important to note that studies targetting humans were NOT included in the systematic literature reviews.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Agent

Virus taxonomy

Family: Rhabdoviridae

Genus: Lyssavirus

Species: Rabies virus

Virus characteristics

Refer to the WOAH Technical disease card for a key summary of the virus characteristics.

Virus survival outside living hosts

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experiments on pathogen survival. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Survival plots indicating the maximum number of days the virus was detected in different matrices under different conditions (temperature)
  • Half-life studies which documented virus viability decay over time under different temperatures
  • Meta-analysis of the reported virus survival period for matrices in which a sufficient number of studies were found

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering pathogen survival experiments published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Transmission

Refer to the WOAH Technical disease card for a key summary of the disease transmission and epidemiological parameters.

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing host infectiousness. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Evidence of Host-host transmission
  • Evidence of transplacentary transmission
  • Meta-analysis of the reported duration of the infectious period, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups
  • Data for all animal matrices in which agent presence was demonstrated.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Diagnosis

Rabies requires laboratory diagnosis due to the absence of distinct clinical signs or definitive lesions. The preferred approach involves detection of the agent in central nervous system (CNS) tissue, especially the brain stem, Ammon's horn, thalamus, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and medulla oblongata. 

Agent detection

For identifying the rabies virus, primary diagnostic tests like the direct fluorescent antibody (DFA) test, direct rapid immunohistochemistry test (dRIT), or pan-lyssavirus polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays are recommended by WOAH. Histological techniques such as Seller staining (Negri bodies) are no longer recommended for diagnosis. 

In cases where primary tests yield inconclusive results, further confirmatory tests (molecular tests, cell culture, or mouse inoculation tests) on the same sample or repeat primary tests on other samples are advised. Virus isolation in cell culture is preferable to mouse inoculation tests whenever possible. 

Characterizing the rabies virus can be done in specialized laboratories through techniques like monoclonal antibodies, partial and full genome sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis. These tests can differentiate between field and vaccine strains and determine the geographic origin of field strains. 

Antibodies detection

Serological tests, such as virus neutralization (VN) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), are suitable for monitoring antibody responses in vaccinated animals as part of rabies control. However, for measuring antibody responses before international animal movement or trade, only VN methods (FAVN test and RFFIT) are acceptable. Serological tests should not be used for primary diagnosis. 

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, covering diagnostic tests approved for use in the European Union (EU).

Data were collected from all evaluations of performance of those tests which provided sensitivity or specificity (or enough data to estimate those needed to be provided). You can browse through the data collected scrolling the panel to the right.

We have chosen not to aggregate and summarize the results because the study conditions can vary greatly. Instead, we present the results for all the articles retrieved from the literature individually, grouped by type of test, diagnostic target and, when relevant, animal species.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Vaccination

For rabies vaccination in animals, inactivated virus (for companion animals and livestock), live attenuated virus (for wildlife and free-roaming dogs), or recombinant vaccines (for wildlife, cats and dogs) are used. 

Dogs are crucial for global rabies elimination, and both oral and parenteral vaccination should be considered in control strategies. Mass parenteral vaccination is the foundation, while oral vaccination complements it, particularly for free-roaming and inaccessible dogs.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all vaccine efficacy studies published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, when evaluating vaccines approved for use in the European Union.

Data were collected from all evaluations of vaccine performance which met the inclusion criteria specified in the Systematic Literature Review Protocol, COVETLAB consortium. Review Protocol 2021. You can browse through the data collected scrolling the panel to the right.

Two main types of performance evaluation studies are reported in literature:

  • (i) those which evaluated vaccine efficacy
  • (ii) those which reported vaccine coverage after animals were challenged with the disease agent.

Results for these two types of evaluations are presented separately.

We have chosen not to aggregate and summarize the results because the study conditions can vary greatly. Instead, we present the results for all the articles retrieved from the literature individually, grouped by vaccine and animal species.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Treatments

Specific treatments for rabies are not available for animals, as the disease has 100% fatality once the clinical symptoms have developed. Animal showing clinincal symptoms shall be culled to prevent further spread of the disease.

Picture on the right: Dogs with rabies, public domain, https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/media/dogswrabies-96b785

Risk Assessments

EFSA has carried out several risk assessments to support risk managers with their decision making on the prevention and control of Rabies (RABV).

The work listed on the right has been carried out by EFSA’s Panel on Animal Health and Welfare and the Rabies working groups or it has been procurement by EFSA to experts on RABV epidemiology and wild boar ecology.

Monitoring Media

Monitoring Rabies in Media dashboard has been developed to support the monitoring of open source Media for articles related to rabies. It provides the spatiotemporal distribution of articles published worldwide in media, it detects alerts when the number of publications is increasing unexpectedly and it allows the access to the original articles. The users can detect trends and may identify potential threats which should be interpreted in the context of the epidemiological situation.

It is developed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The CoVetLab consortium has been responsible for the systematic literature reviews since 2015, and has delivered story maps to EFSA since 2021. Partners are: Swedish National Veterinary Institute (SVA, Sweden); Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR, The Netherlands); Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA; UK) and the University of Surrey (UK).

Geographical distribution data has been kindly provided by the World Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH). WOAH-WAHIS (WOAH World Animal Health Information System) is the original source of these data.

References

The list of references displayed in this storymap is available on the right panel.

You can also download the complete list of references for each of the seven specific knowledge domains for which EFSA carries out systematic literature reviews regularly (living reviews):