Trends and Burden of Human Rabies in Iran 2012-2021: A Cross-Sectional Study

Rabies is an endemic disease in Iran. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the association between sex and age of rabies death cases, detect the trends of the incidence of human rabies, and to compute the burden of human rabies between 2012 and 2021.

The age was categorized, and the association between the sex and the age groups was determined with Fisher's exact test and post hoc test with adjusted standardized residuals method. The trends of the incidence of overall, female, and male rabies were visually examined. The statistical significance of the trends were determined with joinpoint regression. Disability-adjusted life years (DALY) was separately computed for males and females.

Between 2012 and 2021, 69 rabies deaths occurred. The highest frequency was reported in males aged 10-14 years. The association between sex and age was statistically significant (p = 0.003). An increase was observed for the entire period with several fluctuations and a sudden rise in 2021. The joinpoint regression failed to detect any statistically significant joinpoints or trends. The highest DALYs occurred in 2021. DALYs for females and males increased between 2019 and 2021.

The association between the sex and age of rabies cases in Iran was statistically significant. The incidence of deaths had an increasing trend, while the findings of the joinpoint regression were probably due to the large variation in the data.