IJASD
One Year Descriptive Analysis Of Reported Animal Bite Cases At Techiman Municipality Of Ghana
Background: Rabies is a fatal but preventable zoonotic viral disease of the central nervous system. In developed countries, rabies is mostly found in wild animals like bats, but the developing countries like Ghana, dogs still carry rabies, and most rabies deaths in people around the world are caused by dog bites. There are limited studies on rabies in the Techiman Municipality, Bono East Region of Ghana. The current study focuses on the incidence of bites and resultant rabies infectivity, management and control in Techiman South Municipality. The objective of this study is to detect the gaps in rabies control and prevention practices while providing information for mass education. Methods: The study design was cross-sectional with Excel Format for the sample collection from the two departments under Veterinary Service Directorate in Techiman that is Disease Investigation Farm (DIF)/Regional Veterinary Laboratory (RVL) and the Municipal Veterinary Clinic (MVC) all in Techiman. In all, 163 reported cases were collected. Data on dog bites and rabies cases in Bono East Region from January to December 2022 were also analysed. Results: One hundred and Sixty-three (163) cases of animal bites were reported from January to December 2022. The majority of the animals involved were dogs which were 158 representing 96.93% and 73.61% of dogs were not vaccinated. Complete data were available for 157 completed cases. The age range of reported cases was 11months-83 years with few unknown ages. Nearly twenty-five percent (24.54%) were children under 10 years, the majority being males representing 47.85% but slightly above females representing 47.23%. All cases of animal bites were reported first to health facilities before they referred to veterinary facilities. There was a rapid increase of reported cases in the last quarter of 2022 83/163. Recommendation: Ghana Health Service and VSD operated independent systems of zoonotic disease reporting, collected very different sets of information and did not have a common platform for data sharing and reconciliation. This needs to be addressed to ensure better disease information collection, management and dissemination. Animals suspected of having rabies on dying have their brain tissue examined at KCCR as DIF/RVL not having the standard equipment for rabies diagnosis. This calls for upgrading the DIF/RVL and also further improvement in the skills and/or equipment for rabies detection at DIF/RVL. This was the reason why most of the samples were not able to be summited to KCCR due to the high cost of transportation to Kumasi.