Epidemiological aspect of rabies in the region of Vale do Paraiba during the period of 1992 to 2011

Abstract

The Vale do Paraiba, situated in the east of Sao Paulo State, is a region where the animal rabies occurs, in its endemic form, for decades. The control measurements adopted, mainly the vaccines in animals and the systematic population control of the hematophagous bats from the species Desmodus rotudus, have not achieved the expected success to impede and limit the infection cases of the virus. This can be explained by the fact that the region has favorable environmental conditions for perpetuation of shelters and abundant food for the maintenance of hematophagous bat. The objective of this study is to report the occurrence of rabies during the period of 1992 to 2011 in suspected samples from 41 cities from metropolitan region of Vale do Paraiba – SP. 5432 samples were analyzed by the Direct Immunofluorescence (DIF) technique and intracerebral inoculation of mice. In the samples analyzed, 567 in 5432 (10.4%) gave positives results being 21.7% (527/2421) from herbivores, 2.4% (23/972) from chiropteras, 3.7% (6/162) from other species (swine, caprine, ovine, primates and rodents) and 0.6% (11/1877) from dogs and cats. The obtained results indicate that the samples of herbivores showed the greater rate of positive results when compared to the samples of the other animal’s species analyzed, which indicates the endemicity of the disease in these species. Based in this observation, it becomes important and essential to the region the continuous adoption and the improvement of epidemiological supervision systems, such as: the encourage of the education programs and population awareness, mainly in the rural areas, the realization of hematophagous bat control, and the vaccination of susceptible animals. For an effective performance and success, these actions must be conducted with the participation of the State institutions of environment, healthy and agriculture.