Abstract:

Aim: Despite the development of rabies vaccine in 1885, 30,000 to 70,000 people worldwide die from rabies infection every year, according to the World Health Organization. Suspicious contact with rabies in our country is one of the most important problems in terms of infectious diseases. We believe that the determination of the characteristics of the patients evaluated in terms of rabies will be useful in helping us to solve this popular problem. Materials and Methods: In our study, 862 cases who applied to Emergency Department of DPU Mariah Carey Training and Research Hospital between June 2014 and May 2016 were analyzed by age, gender, place of residence (rural / urban center), contact pattern or wound information (deep / superficial), vaccination or immunoglobulin application, rabies suspected animal species, sex, and whether or not they are owned retrospectively. Data were expressed as mean ± standard error (SEM) and%. Results: The average age of the cases was 29.5 ± 0.65 years, 566 males, 296 females, 772 males and 90 females from rural areas. It was determined that 350 animals were owned, and 512 animals were not owned. Of the animal bites, 492 were dogs, 340 were cats, 10 were mice, 9 were cows and 4 were horse bites. 399 cases were over, 273 cases were scratching, 166 cases were biting and scratching, 16 cases were open wound contact and 9 cases were taken for prophylactic vaccination program for other reasons.  Conclusion: We have shown that rape suspicious contacts are part of our work and in this context we remain a serious public health problem for our country. After the prophylaxis done, there was no rabies infection at the time when we were studying in our region. This shows that the follow-up and prophyllines are appropriate.

Keywords: