[Epidemiology of rabies virus and other lyssaviruses]

Rabies is a zoonosis that infects domestic and wild animals through close contacts with saliva from infected animals. The annual number of deaths worldwide caused by rabies is estimated approximately 55,000 by World Health Organization (WHO). There has been no indigenous rabies case in Japan since 1957; however, there was only one imported case, a traveler who was bitten by a stray dog in Nepal and died in 1970. Dogs in Asia and Africa remain the main reservoir and transmitter of rabies to humans. The others are mainly coyotes, foxes, jackals, mongooses, raccoons, skunks, wolves and bats. The efficacy of the current human and veterinary vaccines against emergent lyssaviruses should be evaluated because the newly discovered rabies-related viruses have been isolated from bats.