Abstract
Climate change in the Tropics has profound impacts on all ecosystems and transmission of infectious diseases by their vectors. Among such neglected tropical diseases is rabies with the highest case fatality rate. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarize and pool estimates of rabies status in Tropical countries as a result of climate change for the past 30 years. Published research between 1981 and 2021 were comprehensively searched and the required information was extracted. The prevalence was estimated using the random-effects meta-analysis because higher heterogeneity between studies was expected. The pooled estimate of rabies was 17% (95% CI: 14–20%), with individual study prevalence estimates ranged from 0 to 92%. Studies were approximately weighted equally with individual weight ranging from 1.116–2.719%. Subgroup analysis indicated that the random pooled prevalence of rabies was 34% (95% CI: 10–61%) in dogs and 0% (95% CI: 0–1%) in humans. Furthermore, a subgroup analysis across regions indicated that the pooled prevalence was 65% in Cameroon, 47% in Canada, 47% in Canada and 11% in the United States. Very few studies were reported from Africa to be included in this meta-analysis. Tropical countries that had experienced a temperature change above the average (0.18C) had a higher prevalence (21%) of rabies than those that had below 0.18C change. The estimated pooled rabies prevalence was found high in areas that had experienced a larger magnitude of temperature change and showed varying results among study regions and host species. Therefore, focusing on mass dog vaccination campaigns is key.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Assessing Impacts in Diverse Ecosystems
KEYWORDS
CLIMATE CHANGE, TROPICS, SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS, RABIES PREVALENCE
