Chang Young Fei
National Taiwan University
Taiwan
Title: Rabies surveillance and contingency actions of ferret-badger rabies in Taiwan, 1999 to 2014
Biography
Biography: Chang Young Fei
Abstract
Rabies Virus (RABV) is the prototype virus of the genus Lyssavirus in the family Rhabdoviridae and is the causative agent of classic rabies in human and animals. On July 17, 2013, Taiwan confirmed to detect RABV in wild Taiwan ferret-badgers (OIE 2013) which means that rabies has reappeared in Taiwan ever since WHO announced that Taiwan was a rabies free country in 1961 (WHO 1966). Up to December 2014, totally 423 rabid ferret-badgers were diagnosed. Epidemiologic analysis indicates that Taiwan ferret-badger is the sole reservoir host for the rabies virus. The temporal dynamics of rabid ferret-badgers in Taiwan from July 2013 to December 2014 suggests that the epidemic appears to have subsided to enzootic levels. The TFBV can be categorized into two clades which causes the Main Epidemic Area and the East Epidemic Area. The two epidemic areas are geographically separated by the Central Mountain Range and Kaoping River. No rabid case in the whole Taiwan Island is diagnosed in the north side of the Daan River which divides the northern third of the island. To date, there have been three cases of spillover infection from the Taiwan ferret-badger virus (TFBV) into non-reservoir hosts (OIE 2014) and no human rabies deaths have been associated with the TFBV epidemic.