Determinants of Canine Rabies in Morocco: How to Make Pertinent Deductions for Control?

Mounir Khayli*, Youssef Lhor, Sami Derkaoui, Yassir Lezaar, Mehdi El Harrak, Latifa Sikly and Mohammed Bouslikhane

Determinants of Canine Rabies in Morocco: How to Make Pertinent Deductions for Control?

Rabies is a fatal viral infection that can infect all mammals, but domestic dogs cause over 99% of all human deaths from rabies among the world, so the vast majority of human cases (>90%) result from the bites of rabid domestic dogs. Although rabies can infect and be transmitted by a wide range of mammals, reservoirs comprise only mammalian species within the orders Carnivora (e.g.
dogs, raccoons, skunks, foxes, jackals) and Chiroptera (bats). After a century of rabies control, Morocco registered an average of 301 animal cases and 21 human cases annually for the last decade
(2005-2015).

This study is the first conducted in Morocco for a sustained scrutiny on rabies analytic knowledge of the disease. The upshot is to employ statistics procedures for robust outputs, both to verify assumptions and attempt to make pertinent deductions on the reasons for failures of multiple national control plans during de last decades. The gathered data will help to build a new
strategy with a focus on a “One Health” approach.

The presence of two groups, both sick and non-sick or exposed and unexposed, is essential in order to draw an explanatory conclusion. It is impossible to attribute a causal role to a factor
by working only on a sick population, that is to say by not having witnesses. In such an epidemiological and socio-economic context, continuous and regular medical prophylaxis by the veterinary services existing in rural areas must be able to stop the deterioration of the  epidemiological situation. A culling policy is less likely to interrupt transmission as compared to a mass-vaccination strategy, and socially not acceptable.


Epidemiol Open J
. 2019; 4(1): 1-11. doi: 10.17140/EPOJ-4-113

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