BHUBANESWAR: The state government has made human rabies a notifiable disease to ensure zero human deaths due to it by 2030. The Health and Family Welfare department, in a notification, said rabies is 100 per cent fatal but preventable by timely and appropriate post exposure prophylaxis.
Odisha has become the 12th state to announce rabies as a notifiable disease after Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra. All public, private hospitals, clinics, poly clinics, nursing homes, hospitals of other streams of medicine, medical college and hospitals, non-teaching hospitals, diagnostic clinics, NGO sector hospitals and municipality hospitals will have to report rabies cases with immediate effect.
“Rabies is a viral disease in the country resulting in human deaths. Human rabies incidents depend critically on dog-related transmission parameters. Dogs are the main source of human rabies and up to 99 per cent of all transmission occurs due to dog bites,” the notification said.
Rabies is the oldest recognised zoonotic disease of public health concern in the state accounting for substantial morbidity, mortality and economic loss. As the National Rabies Control Programme (NRCP) is being implemented to address the issues and challenges of rabies surveillance, it has been made mandatory to report all cases in a proper format to keep a track on the disease so that elimination can be planned properly.
The Health department has asked all directorates, medical colleges and hospitals and CDMOs to ensure that suspected, probable or confirmed cases of rabies in humans and deaths due to rabies are reported in an integrated manner on the integrated disease surveillance programme (IDSP) portal without fail.
“Prevention, control and elimination of rabies from a geographical area can only be achieved through robust surveillance, post-exposure prophylaxis and case/death reporting system,” the notification added.
Earlier, Union Health Ministry had written to secretaries of all states and UTs to make human rabies a notifiable disease.