There is no attempt to compile an Accurate National Data on Rabies

In India, the deadliest virus-caused disease - Rabies, where nearly 100 % of the patients die after developing symptoms - has not been notifiable until recently. In 2021, India declared rabies a notifiable disease.  

The national figures from a study in 2005 showed 12,700 cases of the furious rabies type. The numbers of paralytic and atypical rabies were not estimated but the authors refer to a total rabies estimate by other studies of 20,000. 

91% of the rabies deaths were in rural areas and only 16% of the deaths occurred in health facilities. 62 % of thsoe who died were males and 50 % were children under 15 years. 

The median time from bite to death was 8 weeks. 

Two-thirds of the deceased rabies patients had not sought hospital treatment. The third who did, received one or more vaccines after their most recent bite. However, only one patient completed the then recommended course of 14 injections. 

“The true burden of rabies in India is not known. The reported incidence (in Government data) is probably an underestimation because in India rabies is still not a notifiable disease,” said the WHO representative to India in 2018. “The government figures are way lower than the actual figures,” says M K Sudarshan, founder member of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India.

The compilation of national data on rabies cases has been so poor as to be laughable. According to the National Health Profile 2017 of the health ministry, there were 86 rabies cases in the country and no survivors, so the fatality rate was 100 per cent. 

In a single Infectious Disease Hospital in Delhi however, in January 2017, of the nine patients admitted, seven were categorised under 'Left Against Medical Advice (LAMA)' and the other two were reported dead. The situation was identical every month. This implies that the LAMA patients too would have died for sure, but were not categorised as such.

So the Rabies patients in just one hospital were 25 % more than the claimed national total !

Just one state - Karnataka, saw 789 cases of rabies between 2016 and 2018.

In 2021, India created a One Health network that will not only serve rabies but will also strengthen surveillance and health systems for multiple health risks at the human-animal-environment interface.

The aim of the network is to study the prevalence of ten selected zoonotic diseases (throughout the country) and five trans-boundary animal diseases (mainly from northeast boundary states) and analyse risks so as to provide forewarning.