Human rabies cases soar in southern China
Canadian Press
Friday, November 07, 2003
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BEIJING (AP) - Human deaths from rabies have soared in southern China's Guangxi region and authorities blame rising pet ownership and low vaccination rates, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Rabies killed 312 people in Guangxi from January to September of this year, more than twice the number of cases in all of 2002, Xinhua reported late Friday, citing a local health department.
"The increase in pet ownership in Guangxi's urban and rural areas was the major cause of the rapid rise in rabies cases," said Yang Jinye, deputy director of the Guangxi Diseases Prevention and Control Centre, Xinhua reported.
Yang also blamed vagrant dogs and said fewer than 20 per cent of Guangxi's 6.2 million dogs in all have been vaccinated for rabies.
Rabies - which can be transmitted to humans by dogs, cats, livestock and some wild animals - killed 1,003 people in China last year, Xinhua said. But this year's toll has surged because of outbreaks in the southern provinces Guangdong, Hainan, Hunan and Jiangsu this summer, the agency said.
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