PMID- 36245698
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
LR  - 20221019
IS  - 2313-1810 (Electronic)
IS  - 2312-0053 (Print)
IS  - 2312-0053 (Linking)
VI  - 37
IP  - 1
DP  - 2022
TI  - A retrospective review of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis queries, South Africa, 
      2016-2019.
PG  - 354
LID - 10.4102/sajid.v37i1.354 [doi]
LID - 354
AB  - BACKGROUND: The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICDs) of South 
      Africa (SA) provides technical support to healthcare workers (HCWs) with regard 
      to infectious diseases through the NICD clinician hotline. Queries to the hotline 
      are often about rabies prophylaxis. An analysis of these queries may help to 
      identify knowledge gaps amongst HCWs regarding prevention of rabies in humans in 
      SA. METHODS: A retrospective descriptive review was conducted to analyse rabies 
      post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) queries received by the NICD from 01 January 2016 
      to 31 December 2019. RESULTS: A total of 4655 queries were received by the NICD 
      clinician hotline for the study period, of which 2461 pertained to rabies PEP 
      (52.87%). The largest number of calls were placed by HCWs (n = 2313/2437; 94.9%). 
      Queries originated mainly from Gauteng (n = 912/2443; 37.3%) and KwaZulu-Natal (n 
      = 875/2443; 35.8%) provinces. A total of 50 different types of animals were 
      related to exposures involving humans. Dogs (67.7%) and cats (11.8%) were the 
      animals most frequently reported and exposure category III was most common 
      (88.6%). Approximately equal numbers of callers were advised active management of 
      administering rabies PEP and conservative management of withholding PEP. This did 
      not seem to be affected by the exposure category related to the call. CONCLUSION: 
      This analysis shows the ongoing demand by HCWs for technical support regarding 
      patient management following potential exposure to rabies. Gaps in HCWs rabies 
      knowledge provide unique learning points on guiding training to achieve the goal 
      of eliminating dog-mediated human rabies deaths by 2030.
CI  - (c) 2022. The Authors.
FAU - Whitbread, Trisha A
AU  - Whitbread TA
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-9635-7933
AD  - Outbreak Response Unit, Division of Public Health Surveillance, National 
      Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Kabuya, Kathleen J
AU  - Kabuya KJ
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-3321-9909
AD  - Outbreak Response Unit, Division of Public Health Surveillance, National 
      Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Naran, Nimesh
AU  - Naran N
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-4367-5011
AD  - Outbreak Response Unit, Division of Public Health Surveillance, National 
      Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Juggernath, Amilcar M
AU  - Juggernath AM
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-6652-2245
AD  - Department of Community Health, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health 
      Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
AD  - Department of Public Health Medicine, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic 
      Hospital, Gauteng Department of Health, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Mathews, Moushumi A
AU  - Mathews MA
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-7500-432X
AD  - Outbreak Response Unit, Division of Public Health Surveillance, National 
      Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Blumberg, Lucille H
AU  - Blumberg LH
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-2828-7678
AD  - Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases, and Division of Public 
      Health Surveillance, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, 
      South Africa.
AD  - Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
FAU - Weyer, Jacqueline
AU  - Weyer J
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-9471-2890
AD  - Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases, and Division of Public 
      Health Surveillance, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, 
      South Africa.
AD  - Department of Medical Virology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of 
      Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
AD  - Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Health Sciences, 
      University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
FAU - Essel, Vivien
AU  - Essel V
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-9062-9667
AD  - Outbreak Response Unit, Division of Public Health Surveillance, National 
      Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20220913
PL  - South Africa
TA  - S Afr J Infect Dis
JT  - Southern African journal of infectious diseases
JID - 101646666
PMC - PMC9558765
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - NICD
OT  - animal exposure
OT  - clinician hotline
OT  - post-exposure prophylaxis
OT  - rabies
COIS- The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that 
      may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
EDAT- 2022/10/18 06:00
MHDA- 2022/10/18 06:01
PMCR- 2022/09/13
CRDT- 2022/10/17 04:18
PHST- 2021/10/15 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2022/02/21 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2022/10/17 04:18 [entrez]
PHST- 2022/10/18 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2022/10/18 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2022/09/13 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - SAJID-37-354 [pii]
AID - 10.4102/sajid.v37i1.354 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - S Afr J Infect Dis. 2022 Sep 13;37(1):354. doi: 10.4102/sajid.v37i1.354. 
      eCollection 2022.