Project summary

Rabies is a serious public health concern in North Africa (N.Afr.) and its reintroduction to Western European countries presently free of rabies in non-flying animals represents a serious threat.

This project will address a global multidisciplinary approach to draw a precise picture of the rabies epidemiology in N.Afr. by identifying and quantifying epidemiological, ecological, sociological and vaccinological key factors for rabies dynamics.
Furthermore and despite that the Western European countries have almost completely eliminated canine and vulpine rabies, they continue to declare some human and animal cases mostly imported from North Africa in addition to the presence of the disease in bats with some spillover to humans. Therefore, the study of rabies in N.Afr. and West Europe will determine the possible overlapping of rabies epidemiological cycles between the Western European and North African shores. Therefore baseline epidemiological data on human and animal rabies will be collected and analyzed by GIS in 4 N.African countries for the identification of rabies hyperactive areas.

Factors which contribute to human post-exposure therapy failures will be identified.
KAP surveys will be addressed in order to weigh out key ethologic factors of dogs and the impact of human socio-cultural perturbations and human behavior which may play a role in rabies dynamics and vaccination efficiency.
Phylogenetic analysis will be carried out on rabies isolates collected from North Africa or of imported cases recorded in 3 European countries bordering the Mediterranean sea as well as bat lyssaviruses. We will try to elucidate whether lyssaviruses (rabies and rabies-related viruses) are circulating in bats in N.Africa. Circumstantial data indicate exchange of bats between Europe and Africa most likely harboring lyssaviruses. Therefore, we propose an ecological study of bat species in North Africa and Italy. All workpackages will lead to a coherent analysis of rabies epidemiology.

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