Two peo­ple in the city of Bei­jing died of rabies in Jan­u­ary 2013, the Bei­jing Cen­ters for Dis­eases Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion has announced on Tues­day, 5 Feb­ru­ary 2013.

One of them was bit­ten by a stray dog on the fin­ger; the other was bit­ten on the fin­ger by a pet dog. Nei­ther per­son was vac­ci­nated after the injuries.

Most rabies cases in Bei­jing involve adult males who are farm­ers or migrant work­ers. Half of the peo­ple who caught rabies were bit­ten by stray dogs, and most were not vaccinated.

[ProMED note: Trav­el­ers to Bei­jing should be aware that canine rabies, despite rig­or­ous con­trol mea­sures imple­mented by the local author­i­ties, remains preva­lent in the Chi­nese cap­i­tal. Any­one injured in an encounter with a stray dog should seek imme­di­ate post-exposure pro­phy­laxis.]
(ProMED 2/6/2013)

A total of 13 Bei­jing res­i­dents have died of rabies in 2012, more than dou­ble the num­ber of deaths in 2011. Experts have attrib­uted the increase in deaths to a lack of an effec­tive vac­ci­na­tion pro­gram in the cap­i­tal. Of the 13 vic­tims, most were bit­ten by pet dogs rather than strays, the Bei­jing Cen­ters for Dis­eases Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) reported on 10 Decem­ber 2012. Only five peo­ple died of rabies in 2011, the CDC said.

In 12 of the 13 cases, the vic­tims did not seek vac­ci­na­tion after they were bit­ten, and the 13th vic­tim died before he fin­ished the entire course of vac­ci­na­tions. A CDC offi­cial said rabies often occurs within three months after being bit­ten, and no one can sur­vive the dis­ease. A con­sul­tant from Bei­jing Ken­nel Club said that if dog own­ers are bit­ten, even by a vac­ci­nated pet, res­i­dents should still seek med­ical atten­tion for fur­ther vac­ci­na­tion. The con­sul­tant stated that: “Dogs will be vac­ci­nated for free if they are reg­is­tered at the police sta­tion, but some own­ers evade this as it costs 1,000 yuan (USD 160),” said Xu. “We’ve appealed for res­i­dents to get their dogs reg­is­tered for years, but achieved lit­tle,” he noted.

Mary Peng, Direc­tor of the Beijing-based Inter­na­tional Cen­ter for Vet­eri­nary Ser­vices, said dog vac­cine cov­er­age in the US is around 80%, but in China up-take is only 20%. “The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment only per­mits licensed vet­eri­nary hos­pi­tals to import vac­cine, which has proven effec­tive in pro­tect­ing dogs from rabies,” Peng said.

Bei­jing is con­sid­er­ing a free com­pul­sory vac­cine pro­gram for pet dogs in the future, and also a sys­tem penal­iz­ing res­i­dents who fail to vac­ci­nate their pets.

The full arti­cle may be accessed at http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20121211.1446899
(ProMED 12/11/2012)