Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) survey of canine rabies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab Province of Pakistan
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) survey of canine rabies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab Province of Pakistan Touseef Ahmed1,2* , Sabir Hussain1, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Zia1, Sangay Rinchen3, Ammar Yasir1, Shafique Ahmed4, Waqar Ali Khan5, Muhammad Farooq Tahir6 and Robert Ricketson7
Abstract Background: This study aimed to assess the extent of knowledge and understanding of rabies disease in rural and urban communities of Pakistan. It also identified malpractices after suspected dog bite that might pose a risk for humans contracting rabies. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted (n = 1466) on people having different age groups and educational levels in four different geographic regions of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in Pakistan. Knowledge, attitude, and practices of people were assessed using a structured questionnaire. We used a bivariate and multivariate analysis to study the association between rabies related mortalities in near or extended family members and different risk behaviors. Results: Our results demonstrate that the majority of the juvenile population (less than 18 years of age) were not aware of the clinical signs of rabies in animals. 75% of the total respondents were not vaccinated against rabies, 60% did not seek a doctor’s advice after a suspected animal bite, and 55% had inadequate health care facilities for rabies patients in local hospitals. Respondents that had pets at home had not vaccinated (38%; p < 0.05; odds ratio 1.58) themselves against rabies due to lack of knowledge and awareness of pre-exposure prophylaxis for rabies (51%; p < 0.05; odds ratio 1.25). They also tend to not visit doctor after suspected bite (52%; p < 0.05; odds ratio 1.97), which may had resulted in more deaths (65%; p < 0.05; odds ratio 1.73) of someone in their near or extended family due to rabies. Conclusions: Lack of knowledge about the nature of rabies disease and prophylaxis has contributed to increase of rabies related deaths. Inadequate health care facilities and poor attitude of not seeking medical attention after suspected dog bite are the major reasons of rabies related deaths. These findings could help in devising a targeted management strategy and awareness program to control and reduce the incidence of human rabies related deaths in Pakistan. Keywords: Rabies, Infectious disease epidemiology, Zoonosis, KAP survey, Pakistan
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons li
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